Chloe's Supernatural: Season One ON HIATUS
by shadowglove
Summary: When Chloe helps Pete and his children move into their new home in Lawrence, Kansas, she never expected it to be haunted, or to meet the Winchester brothers...OR the adventure that they'd embark on together afterwards. DeanChloeSam
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

THIS STORY BEGINS IN THE SUPERNATURAL SEASON 1 EPISODE "HOME", BUT WILL MENTION THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN EARLIER EPISODES. SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE SEASON WILL APPEAR IN THIS STORY. AU SMALLVILLE.

**IN THIS REALITY, CHLOE IS 20 YEARS OLD (TWO YOUNGER THAN SAM) AND SHE HASN'T LEARNT ABOUT HER METEOR ABILITIES AS YET.**

_Okay everyone, this is going to be a Winchullivan version of the 1__st__ season (hopefully), and I hope everyone will enjoy it! It will have similar elements as __**CHLOE AND THE WINCHESTERS**__, except this will be a romance, whereas the aforementioned oneshot was more centered on family love._

_This is a Dean/Chloe, Sam/Chloe, Dean/Sam/Chloe story (although the romance will be slower to happen due to the fact that I want it to follow the first series). Don't like multiple romances? Well, I warned you._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe placed a hand to her forehead and winced. Her head was _killing_ her, then again, she hadn't slept well the night before. It was the nightmares. Ever since she'd moved in to help Pete fully relocate to the new house and keep the children company while he searched for a new job all day, well-ever since coming to this house she'd had those nightmares.

The ones that kept her up at night.

It'd started the first night she'd laid her head on the pillow. The nightmare had been vivid, amazingly _real_, and she'd watched as an older blonde woman went to check on her son-in the same room Pete's adopted daughter Lindsay used-and somehow ended up on the roof, her guts being torn from her while she was alive, and bursting into flames right above her baby son's crib.

Chloe'd awoken in terror, and after forcing herself to sleep again she'd had another nightmare that was very similar, but the next woman was younger, and there was no baby, but there _was_ a handsome brunette who looked up at her from the bed and screamed her name in terror and heartbreak.

_JESS_!

Shaking her head to rid her mind of his agonized scream, Chloe sighed, looking at the clock on her bedside table. It was eleven o'clock at night and yet Pete hadn't arrived back at home yet.

_I know he hasn't been coping well after Hailey's death, but he really has to get it together, especially for his children_.

When Pete had called and said that Hailey had been killed by a drunken driver while on her way to home, Chloe had dropped everything and gone to Wichita to be with her childhood best friend. She hadn't seen much of Pete ever since he'd left Smallville, but she'd kept into contact with him-had gone to his wedding-and knew his two children, Lindsay and Peter. She'd never felt prouder of Pete than when he'd adopted Hailey's daughter from a previous relationship-raising and treating the girl as if she was his own-and never happier for him than when Hailey had become pregnant with little Peter.

She'd also had a decent enough relationship with Hailey, who'd been a couple of years older than Pete, so the news had been a blow to the young reporter as well.

Chloe had been supportive when Pete had decided to cremate Hailey and keep her urn in the house even when Hailey had always told him she wanted to be buried next to her twin sister, who'd died at birth. Chloe had nodded her understanding when Pete had put the house for sale-sold it to the first person who showed interest, and bought a fixer-upper house in Lawrence, Kansas. Chloe'd even agreed to stay and act as the baby-sitter while Pete was out searching for a job since he'd quit his last one. But she wasn't going to put up with him coming home at all hours of the night without a job and completely drunk.

Those kids had lost their mama and didn't need their daddy to be behaving like this.

"Aunt Chloe?"

The blonde turned in to her door to see seven-year-old Lindsay standing there. "Yes honey? Do you need anything?"

"The monster. It's in my closet again." The young girl whispered, holding onto her teddy bear with fear.

Chloe normally would have told the girl that there were no such things as monsters, but considering that she knew what a couple of meteor rocks could do, and how no one had believed _her_ when _she_ was trying to warn them-well-she got up and followed the girl to her room, going to the closet and opening it, looking at the dark inside.

"It's there." Lindsay pressed, sitting on the edge of her bed and hugging her bear tighter to her chest. "I know it is."

Chloe surveyed the closet, giving everything a good once-over, and despite the fact that she had a feeling of being watched, she couldn't see anything. Still, she looked behind some of the stacked boxes of Lindsay's things that they hadn't been able to unpack as yet, and yet there was nothing.

"Baby, I don't see anything here."

"Are you sure?" The young girl whispered from her bed.

"Yeah, definitely." But just to make sure, she closed the closet behind her and brought a chair up against it, wedging it against the handles so that even if there _was_ something inside, it wouldn't be able to get out. "How about this? Feel any better?"

Lindsay gave her a small smile and nodded.

"Now, come on, into bed with you little missy." Chloe grinned, tucking in the young girl once more and sitting on the edge of the bed. "You should be asleep by now, you know."

"I don't like this house." Lindsay whispered as she looked up at Chloe with large, frightened eyes.

"Oh, honey, you're just not used to it yet." Chloe didn't think that telling the girl that _she_ didn't like it _either_ would help her have a good night's rest. "You, your brother and your daddy are going to be very happy here."

The young girl with caramel skin and blue eyes sighed, looking down at her Barbie sheets. "I miss mommy."

"I know you do, it's only natural, but you'll grow to like this place a lot—I'm sure your mom would have loved it here." She leaned forwards and pressed a kiss against the girl's forehead before getting up and making sure the pin-light was on before turning off the overhead light and leaving the room.

The blonde knew that it wasn't any good, she wasn't going to get any sleep until Pete came home, so she went downstairs and tried to resume unpacking. She didn't know why Pete didn't try to help her with the unpacking, it might give him some closure, or at least start him down the path, but he stayed away from the things as if they burnt him.

It was while she was unpacking that she heard the sounds. It was like the sound of millions of little claws against the wooden floor.

She got up immediately and made a face. "Oh great, a rodent infestation. Just what this house needed." Sighing, she shook her head and followed the sound to the entrance of the basement. "Right, this is like the beginning of every horror movie I've ever watched."

Closing her eyes, she opened the door to the basement and reached for the light switch-not finding any.

_This just gets better and better_.

Going back to the kitchen, she reached for the flashlight they kept there and returned, taking in a deep, calming breath before descending the rickety stairs, the meager beam of light not doing much good to her in the darkness beneath.

"I don't-see any rats." She frowned, sure that she'd heard the sounds coming from down here. "What was that sound then? Faulty something-or-the-other?" She placed a hand on her hip. "Why the world would Pete get this place anyway? The fact that so many different people have owned it over the last 20 years should have warned him that there was something wrong with it."

And yet Pete said that he'd felt drawn to the house, that this was where he needed to raise his children and try to get over the pain of losing his beloved Hailey-and at the time Chloe had just wanted to be supportive.

_Now, though, I just want to slap him for buying a house in desperate need of renovation-with a possible rat infestation-faulty thingamagiggers, and an imaginary monster in the closet_.

She had to admit though, the house was huge, and it had a great amount of land around it. Despite its need of renovation, Pete had gotten a great deal on the place.

_Wonder why_. She shone her light around the basement in curiosity. _Someone probably died here gruesomely or something-that's always the case in horror movies._

The beam of her flashlight went over something in the corner, and it caught her attention.

The blonde went to the corner and bent on her knees, realizing that it was an old wooden container. She opened the lid and blinked in surprise when she saw photographs inside.

"Looks like the old owners forgot some things while moving." Picking up the pictures, Chloe gasped when she saw the first one. _It's him!_

She was frozen, looking at a younger version of the man who'd saved her life when she was a child. Chloe knew that officially the story was that her mother had disappeared one day, had left them, but Chloe she knew the truth. She remembered the way her mother's eyes had bled black and how it hadn't been her mother anymore.

Chloe shivered, remembering how it felt to be eight years old and terrified. That thing that wasn't her mother had come at her, saying how 'he' wanted her and that she would take her to 'him'. If it hadn't been for the man with the gun who'd burst into the house while she was screaming for help-Chloe didn't know _what_ would have happened.

The thing that lived in her mother's skin had seen him, hissed and ran away. He'd made sure that she was okay before running after the _thing_, and she'd never seen her mother again-had never told anyone about what'd truly happened that day.

She'd been too afraid.

And now here she was, in the same house that her savior had once lived in.

Shivering, Chloe looked at the next picture and gasped, seeing not only her nameless savior, but the first woman, the elder woman, from her nightmares! The one who'd been killed by a shadowy thing right above the crib of her baby!

_I—I can't beli-what's going __**on**_?

Clearing her throat, taking in another deep breath, the blonde looked at the next photo and gazed at the happy faces of her savior and the blonde woman, standing outside of the house that Chloe was now within, with two boys, one around four and the other only a couple of months old.

_This is just too unreal_.

She flipped the photo over carefully and read what was written behind.

_The Winchesters: John, Mary, Dean and little Sammy_.

Suddenly the sound of Lindsay screaming echoed throughout the house.

Chloe dropped everything and hurried out of the basement, tripping once or twice on the many discarded boxes, but she finally made it to the girl's room, hurrying to her bed as the child continued to scream, looking at the closet door.

"What is it Lindsay?" She dropped to her knees beside the screaming child, hands on her shoulders. "What happened?"

The girl pointed to the closet. "I saw it! I saw it again!"

Chloe turned and frowned when she saw that the chair had been moved aside and the closet open. Yet there was nothing there. "Did you take the chair away?"

"No. It—it moved by itself!" Lindsay cried hysterically. "It's the monster! It's the fire monster!"

Chloe froze, remembering her nightmares of the woman in flames-the woman who'd been burnt to crisp in this very house.

What if-what if this was the same thing that'd killed the woman-in this very same room?

"Lindsay, get your pillow. You're coming to sleep with me." Chloe kept her eyes on the empty closet as Lindsay did as told. "We're gonna take your brother to my room as well, okay?"

The child nodded quickly and eagerly as they grabbed her things and made a quick exit, heading to where Peter's nursery was. Chloe picked up the wide-awake boy, and looked around the darkness of the nursery, suddenly seeing everything dark and sinister.

"I don't like this house." Lindsay repeated, grabbing onto Chloe's pajama pants, looking around her, terrified.

_Yeah? Well, I'm beginning to think rat infestation isn't the worst problem this house has either._

Shuffling the kids back to her room, Chloe locked the door behind them. She was never happier than now that Pete had let her have the room with the king-sized bed, because she'd need all the space she could get if she was sharing the bed with the two of them-something she feared she was going to be doing a lot of until she could get to the bottom of this.

Tomorrow morning sharp she was gonna Google John and Mary Winchester, and see what in the world had happened there-and if her nightmares were just nightmares-or if it was something more sinister…like her meteor power finally coming into effect.

"Come on you two." They got into bed. "We'll be fine, we'll be fine."

And yet they slept with the light on.

Pete hadn't gotten home the night before.

Chloe didn't want to worry, so she contented herself with being pissed. Where was Pete and why hadn't he had the grace to at least phone and tell her that he wasn't going to spend the night at home? Was he drunk? Was that it? Was he so drunk that he'd passed out somewhere?

_He's GOT to get his act together_! _His children deserve better than this!_

"Where's dad?" Lindsay asked as they all were in the kitchen that morning, the young girl sitting by the table and eating cereal.

Peter was in his play-pin, playing with some toys.

"He's out, Lindsay. Eat your cereal." Chloe was trying to get the food processor to work, and yet it was a no-go. "Great. Yet _another_ thing in this house that doesn't work." She sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Your dad sure knows how to pick 'em."

The doorbell rung.

Chloe sighed. _Don't tell me he lost his keys_.

Making her way to the door, Chloe wondered if she should let him have a coffee before letting him feel the wind of her ire, but when she opened the door, all of her anger and the many harsh words on the tip of her tongue vanished because it wasn't _Pete_ on the doorstep, it was two handsome young men.

"Yes?" She asked, and then froze when she recognized the tall brunet.

_It's HIM_! It was the guy from her second nightmare! The one who screamed his girlfriend's name as she burst into flames while pinned on the roof above their bed!

_But-but it's IMPOSSIBLE!_

And yet the brunet was looking at her in as much surprise as she was him-as if he'd seen her before too. But that was impossible-_right_?

"I'm sorry to bother you ma'am." The shorter, sandy-blonde man announced. "But we're with the federal-."

"I'm Sam Winchester." The brunet quickly butted into whatever the sandy-blonde was about to say, taking a step towards her.

_Winchester_… Chloe's heart skipped a beat. _Dammit. It's my passive meteor power. It's finally become active!_

"And this is my brother Dean." Sam Winchester continued to rush in his speech, looking nervous as he confronted her, both ignoring Dean and thus missing the surprised look he gave his brother. "We used to live here." He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. "You know, we were just driving by and we were wondering if we could come see the place."

"Winchester." She repeated. That name was forever going to appear in her life, wasn't it? "Yes, I, last night I found some of your pictures."

"You did?" Dean asked seriously.

She nodded. "Yes, in this wooden keep-safe box in the basement."

Peter made a noise from the kitchen.

Chloe looked in the direction of the kids, at the Winchester brothers, made a face, and then a decision. "You know what? Come on in." She let the men into the house and closed the door after them, going to the kitchen knowing that they'd follow her.

"_Juice! Juice! Juice!_" Peter could be heard as he jumped around his play-pin.

"This is Peter." She motioned to the cute little boy. "He's a juice-junkie." Chloe unlocked the kiddy-lock on the fridge, took out a container of juice, and passed it to the young boy before going to stand behind Lindsay's chair.

The girl was looking up at the two men warily.

"Lindsay, these are Sam and Dean." She smiled, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder. "They used to live here."

"Hello." Lindsay finally spoke.

"Hello Lindsay." Sam smiled at her.

"_So_," Dean's attention was on Chloe. "Just moved in?"

She nodded, knowing that the amount of boxes that they'd had to navigate through to get to the kitchen had been a big clue about that. "Yeah."

"Where from?" Dean asked, looking around the kitchen and smiling at Peter.

"Wichita." She explained, going to the sink and giving the food processor a dirty look before sighing and turning back to their guests, leaning back against the counter.

"So, how have you been enjoying the house?" Sam asked.

Chloe frowned slightly, seeing the way he looked at her. It wasn't like someone asking a casual question like the one he was. It was as if—as if he knew something. She decided to test the theory. "Well, no disrespect for your childhood home, but it's been a pain in the backside ever since we arrived."

"Pain?" Dean frowned slightly. "How?"

"Well, the lights flicker every hour despite the fact that Pete swears that the electric wires are all fine, and the food processor is backed up, and we have an infestation of rats." _And maybe ghosts._

"Pete?" Dean asked, face having grown solemn as she'd told them about the house.

"He's our daddy." Lindsay announced.

"Oh." Sam nodded before turning to Chloe. "Have you actually seen these rats or did you only hear them?"

_Either he's really worried about rats or there's something they aren't saying_. "I've only heard them actually. It's the sounds of claws against wood."

The men exchanged looks.

_Oh, I don't like that look._

"Ask them." Lindsay whispered up at Chloe urgently. "Ask them if it was there when they lived here."

"Ask us if _what_ was here when we lived here?" Sam asked, having overheard the whimper, face made up in a worried scowl. "What are you talking about Lindsay?"

Chloe held her breath.

"The monster that's in my closet." Lindsay answered softly. "It came into my room last night and it was on _fire_."

Dean's face went pale immediately, while horror crossed Sam's features.

_My god._ Chloe felt fear enter her as she looked at them. _They know something. That monster—that __**thing**__ Lindsay saw-it was __**real**__!_

"Uh, no, Lindsay." Sam tried smiling reassuringly at the little girl. "We never had anything in our closet."

And yet the brothers shared another look, and after a quick tour they made a hasty retreat.

Chloe frowned as she watched them from the window. They hurried away from the house, their stance urgent and rapid, talking animatedly amongst themselves, pointing to the house several times before getting into an Impala parked on the other side of the street and driving away.

The blonde sighed and turned her back on the street, closing her eyes, trying to tamper down the fear in her soul.

This just confirmed her fears.

_There's something in this house with us, and it isn't Casper._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Hey everyone! I hope you liked this and review to let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Wow, I'm glad you guys liked the first chapter! One of my reviewers __**VERY NICELY**__ pointed out something in the first chapter (THANKS SO MUCH), and so I went back and put in the information I'd forgotten to put. Pete is Lindsay's __**STEPFATHER**__, Hailey was older than Pete, which is why Lindsay is 7 while Pete is 20._

_As I said, the romance will start up SLOWER than it usually does in my stories, but don't worry, there WILL be Winchullivan romance, okay?_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The Winchester brothers stayed in the motel, sitting on the bed and trying to put this together. It was an odd case, because not only had they had to return to their old hometown, not only had they had to go back to the place where their mother had been murdered-but there was something still in that house-and Sam had had a _vision_ about it.

Dean was still reeling with the information that Sam had nightmares about things before they happened. He felt a little hurt that his brother had kept this information from him, but in a sense he could understand. If he went all 'Haley Joel' he'd have kept the whole 'I see dead people' thingy to himself for as long as possible as well.

"So, dude, everything about the hunt aside, Chloe?" Dean caught his brother's attention. "_Now_ I understand why guys find soccer moms so hot. I mean, _come on_."

"Dean." Sam was glaring at Dean, and yet he was blushing. "This is _no_ time to be checking out a _married woman_, okay?"

"Dude, you're _blushing_." Dean smirked. His eyes widened. "You were checking her out too!"

"I was _not_." Sam glared darker at his brother, as his blush deepened as well.

"Dude, you so totally was checking little miss Susie homemaker! And right in front of her kids too!" Dean was laughing as he pointed his finger juvenilely at his brother. "I didn't think you had it in you. Me? Sure. You? Never."

"Shut _up_." Sam grounded out, reaching for the phonebook on the side table. "Look, let's get back to work, alright? The guy who used to own that garage with dad said that after mom's death dad went to see a palm reader in town who said things about the house and after that he was 'different'. We have to find out _who_ he went to and _what_ she said."

At the mention of the job, Dean went serious. "Okay, read out the names in the yellow pages. Maybe dad might have mentioned her."

Sam nodded and continued reading the names until he read one that caused Dean to stiffen.

"Wait. _Missouri_? That's a _name_?" Dean asked, getting up from the bed and going to his bag, where he had their father's journal.

"Yeah." Sam looked up from he phonebook and frowned when he saw his brother pulling out the journal. "What is it?"

"Fuck. It was a _person_." Dean whispered as he sat back down on the bed, their father's journal opened to the first page as he read. "I went to Missouri today and found out the truth." He looked up at his brother. "I always thought he meant the place, you know?"

"But he meant the _palm reader_." Sam's eyes widened. "I wonder if we can get an appointment to see her today."

Dean closed the journal. "Call her up, Haley Joel."

"Shut _up_ jerk."

"Bitch."

Sam growled in annoyance and shook his head at his brother, giving up.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

_Good God, it definitely isn't Casper_.

Chloe sat still, horrified as she read the articles on the computer about Mary Winchester, who'd died in a freak _fire_, in this very house, that'd started in _Lindsay's_ room.

So the fact that Lindsay was seeing a 'fire monster' in her room terrified Chloe. What was _in_ this house? Had it killed Mary Winchester? Was it the reason why so many people had bought and rapidly sold this house ever since? Was it going to try and hurt them?

_What do I do? What do I do_?

And to make things worse, she still had no word from Pete. It'd gotten to the point where she'd called Clark and discreetly asked him if he couldn't use his 'resources' to find their friend and find out what in the world had happened to him, why he wasn't home.

She heard cursing coming from the kitchen and guessed that the repairman wasn't finding the job of repairing the food processor as easy as he'd assured her it would be.

_Betcha he'll wanna charge me extra now_.

Honestly, today was _not_ a good day for Chloe Sullivan, because not only was the house obviously haunted, but this meant that Chloe's dreams weren't just hallucinations. She was _seeing_ things…which meant she'd finally become a freak.

_ARGH!_

Deciding that they might have a dangerous angry spirit on their hands, or some sort of fire-creature, Chloe next Googled for some sort of protection from such things and was surprised when she found that if people were in a circle of salt it would protect them.

The blonde didn't get how a condiment would frighten away a demon or angry spirit or whatever evil, but she'd gone to the kitchen on the pretext of seeing how the repairs were going, before snatching up the salt container and taking it back to the living room with her…

_Just in case._

Chloe's gaze went to Lindsay and Peter, who were sitting on the carpet by her feet, playing with each other and giggling. The blonde smiled as she watched the innocent children, but that smile disappeared as she suddenly felt extremely _cold_, as if there was a presence in the living room with them.

The kids didn't seem to notice it, happily giggling together, but Chloe put away her laptop and her instincts made her grab for the large container of salt. Her body froze as awareness prickled her skin, causing the hair on her arms to stand on end.

Hearing a faint cracking sound, the blonde turned her gaze to the window and her eyes widened in horror as she saw the glass fogging up despite the fact that the news had said that this was one of the hottest days of the year. Her breaths came out in visible puffs of vapor, and before Chloe could even form a reaction to this, the furniture in the living room all began to shake violently…only the furniture.

Chloe dove off of the sofa with a cry of surprise and tumbled next to Lindsay and Peter, the young girl with eyes wide in mute terror, and the young boy innocently curious as to why the furniture were beginning to hover all around them.

"Aunt Chloe?" Lindsay's voice wavered, eyes filling with frightened tears.

"It's going to be alright, Lindsay." Chloe stammered as she tore open the top of the salt container in her hurry, praying to all holy that what the internet had said wasn't just pure crap as she stood and poured the salt all around them in a sloppy and hasty circle.

The sound of squeaking caused her to look up the moment she'd closed the circle and saw words beginning to form on the windows.

_We…Found…You…_

Crying out in horror, Chloe collapsed in the middle of the circle and pulled Lindsay and Peter to her, closing her eyes tightly and trying to protect them with her body as things around them began to explode—picture frames, figurines, vases, Hailey's urn.

Lindsay buried her face in Chloe's shirt and screamed as Peter wailed in terror, not understanding what was going on but terrified nonetheless.

And suddenly, the sound of male screams coming from the kitchen froze Chloe's heart.

_The repairman_.

She pulled the children closer to her, glad that the sound of the destruction around and the children's own screams were drowning out the poor man's, and yet she was horrified. What was happening to them? What was happening to the repairman?

More squeaking could be heard, and Chloe lifted her gaze to the glass above the mantle in front of them. It was completely fogged over, and words began to slowly appear.

_You…can…never…escape…_

Whimpering, Chloe closed her eyes tightly and screamed when the large mirror suddenly _exploded_, sending millions of pieces of glass flying down on them. The blonde protected the children with her body, and as if the explosion had been the culmination of a grand event, the furniture dropped back down on the ground, the windows began to clear up, the temperature in the room rose once more, and the vapor from their breaths disappeared.

The only thing left was the sound of the man screaming in agony in the kitchen.

Chloe shook the piece of glass from her, turning to look at the terrified children. "Lindsay, Peter, are you two okay?"

Pete continued to wail.

Lindsay continued to cry, but she nodded.

"Look, I think it's gone." Chloe whispered. "But I need you two to stay in the circle, do you understand me? No matter what, _stay in the circle_!"

The girl nodded as Chloe got up and ran to the kitchen, pausing in the doorway and gulping back a scream as a metallic scent hit her nose strongly and blood was splattered all over.

The repairman laid on the tiled floor, unconscious body jerking violently, as his arm seemed to have been _chewed off_ to almost his elbow. From the way there was blood just _staining_ the sink, Chloe knew what horrors had just happened to him.

"Oh my God!" She hurried to the fallen, unconscious man, pulling the cellular from her back pocket and dialing 911. "Hold on sir, just hold on!"

X-X-X-X

Chloe sat in the middle of the pool of blood, feeling numb, knowing sanely that she was in shock and yet not sane enough to do something about it. The paramedics had come and taken the repairman away, the police had come and written down the report she'd given them (although she'd kept out all paranormal things to keep from being locked away in the loony bin), and after making sure that Lindsay and Peter remained in the circle of salt, Chloe had gone to the kitchen to clean up the blood and somehow found herself sitting in it, looking unseeingly ahead of her, numb.

She wanted nothing more than to get out of here with the children, but she couldn't. Pete wasn't answering his phone, what if he came home, saw the mess—the _blood_, and couldn't find them? He'd have a heart attack. And anyway, her car mysteriously enough wasn't working, and she'd tried calling everyone but her cellular wasn't working either. It'd stopped working after she'd made that 911 call.

Out of desperation Chloe had even screamed for Clark—and while usually in seconds he'd be by her side, this time he never showed up. It was as if something was keeping him from hearing her…as if something was keeping them from leaving.

_We found you_…whatever the thing that lived in this house was had communicated. _You can never escape_.

Closing her eyes, Chloe cried, and cried and cried, and she didn't know whose arms went around her and comforted her moments later, but she didn't care, she latched onto the warmth, onto the security she felt in those arms and didn't dare open her eyes in case this was all going on in her mind and she was truly insane.

"Poor child." A kindly, unfamiliar female voice cooed. "You were smart to have formed the circle, though. You may have saved the lives of those children and your own."

Chloe opened her eyes looked over the shoulder of the one comforting her, seeing a kind-looking dark woman standing next to Dean Winchester, who looked torn between angry, frightened, and confused.

Which meant…that the one comforting her was…

_Sam_.

Pulling away slightly in embarrassment, Chloe tried to wipe at her tears, only managing to smear her face with blood. She looked up miserably at them, not even asking how they'd gotten inside. "What-what _is in this house_?"

"We don't know." The woman admitted. "Something truly evil once walked in this house, but it's not the same energy I feel now." She tore her eyes from Chloe's pleading ones and looked around the kitchen, shivering, before turning to the boys with a frown. "Well, don't just _stand_ there! Help the woman and those children terrified in the salt-circle to get their things! We're taking them to my house until we can come back and cleanse this house."

Chloe looked at the woman at that. "You can do that? You can get rid of whatever—whatever did all of this?"

"I can try."

And that was all that mattered.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Missouri's house was _odd_, but then again, Missouri was a palm reader, so that would make sense, wouldn't it? Chloe had been just as fascinated with each trinket and bauble as the children, and yet she'd kept her enthusiasm in check, refraining from touching and just admiring from a safe distance.

The kids were tired after all they'd been put through, so Chloe had been grateful when Missouri ushered them to her bedroom so they could sleep off the experience.

But that left her alone with the two Winchester brothers.

"So." Dean finally spoke. "How did you know about the salt?"

"Yeah, I was wondering that myself." Sam added as they sat in Missouri's living room.

"I-Lindsay said that there was something evil in the house and I wanted a way to protect us." Chloe whispered, taking a sip of the water mixed with sugar that Missouri had given her to help her clam down.

Dean smiled slightly, leaning forwards. "You know, most moms would just tell their daughters that there's no such things as monsters."

"Cute but stupid sometimes, dear _God_." Missouri announced in exasperation as she returned from the bedroom and sat down on a chair. "She is _not_ the mother, can't you two realize that she's too young?" The woman shook her head before turning to Chloe soothingly. "Have you been able to get into contact with your friend? Their father? He's been missing since last night, hasn't he?"

"Yes, he has." Chloe nodded her head, decided not to be shocked that Missouri knew that. The woman _was_ a psychic and palm reader, right? "I'm worried that something happened to him."

Missouri smiled. "Don't worry child, he's okay. He's battling his personal inner demons right now, but once he does that and overcomes he'll be right as rain."

Chloe smiled tremulously at the older woman. "I hope so."

Nodding, Missouri leaned back in her seat. "Chloe, why don't you tell us everything that happened?"

Chloe did as told, telling them about the weird feelings both she and the kids had had since going to the house, about the sounds with no explanation, the way the lights flickered, about the fire-creature that terrified Lindsay, seeming to haunt her bedroom, and then finally told of the attack that'd happened that very day.

"You-you said it wrote _we found you…you can never escape_?" Sam frowned, looking concerned and confused. "But why would it do that? Is it confusing one of you three for a former occupant of the house?"

"Maybe it's killer?" Dean guessed. "Or maybe it's _the_ killer and it's confusing you three as the ones that got away?"

"Dean." Sam turned to his brother. "What if this thing that killed mom has been in that house all along? What if mom wasn't its first victim? What if-."

"No." Missouri shook her head firmly, face dark with a frown. "It was a different energy. What killed your mother was _much_ more powerful than what I sensed in the house now. But when _true_ evil touches a place, it leaves a scar, and it will always attract evil." She paused. "Plus, what killed your mother acted alone. I sensed more than one energy in that house today."

"_Great." _Chloe snorted. "No _wonder_ Pete got such a good price on that place."

Dean smirked, eyes on Chloe, then feeling Missouri's scolding gaze on him he quickly looked away and cleared his throat, feigning complete innocence.

Missouri rolled her eyes at the younger man before turning her attention to Chloe. "Honey, you've been through a horrible experience today, why don't you join those angels in my room and sleep it off? The boys and I will prepare what we need to prepare and go to your house to cleanse it. By tonight you'll be able to sleep in that house without any fear."

Chloe doubted that she'd _ever_ be able to sleep in that house ever again, but she just nodded and got up, heading to Missouri's bedroom, tired.

Sam waited until the door to Missouri's room closed before turning to the elder woman. "You're keeping something from her."

"Yeah, I got that too." Dean nodded in agreement, sitting taller in his seat. "What exactly is it that you didn't want her to know?"

"How have you two managed to stay alive hunting this long?" Missouri wanted to know. "Didn't you notice anything _off_ about the damage done to that house?"

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Lady, it was a typical poltergeist crime-scene." Dean added.

"No, it _wasn't_." Missouri argued. "I've seen poltergeists more than I wished I did-and even if the one they're attacking is protected they try to harm the person—even if they know they can't."

"But it attacked Chloe and the kids." Sam leaned forwards in his seat.

"No, it only tried to _frighten_ them." Missouri corrected. "It hurt the repairman—"

"Who _wasn't_ protected by the circle of salt." Dean cut it.

"—but it merely made its presence known to Chloe and the kids." The woman continued as if Dean hadn't spoken. "And it took time to give her a message. _Two_ messages."

"You think—you think its message was for _Chloe_." Sam blinked in surprise. "You think it's going _personally_ for her."

"I-I feel something about her." Missouri nodded. "I think-" she looked up at the boys. "There's something in her aura that I cannot understand."

Dean went defensive immediately. "Do you think she's to blame with what's-?"

"No." Missouri shook her head. "I don't know what I think-but whatever is happening, it's not her fault, but she's deep in the middle of it and doesn't even _know_ that she is."

The brothers shared a frown.

"She said it wrote that: _we found you—you can never escape_." Dean remembered. "Something was obviously after her before this ever happened, and only when she entered that house was it able to find out where she was. Or maybe the thing after her wasn't the one to discover her—but it knows of the thing that is. We _have_ heard of cases where these things help each other if there's a common goal."

Sam stood up. "But _what_ was after her? And _why_?"

Missouri was silent, looking ahead of her as able to see something they couldn't, before shaking her head and standing up. "Enough talking. We need that protective mix to make, and a house to purify."

The brothers shared a look before nodding.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**There you go, chapter two!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Wanna thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I just want to warn everyone that this is gonna be an AU Smallville—since I want to bring some of the characters from that show into some episodes of this as well, so just to let you know in case something happens in this story that is completely un-cannon._

* * *

Chloe paused as she held Peter up, balancing his weight on her hip, and with her free hand she clutched Lindsay's. While the house hadn't looked that nice when they'd left, now it looked like a disaster had hit it. When Missouri Moseley had told her the plan of placing bags of protective and purifying ingredients in the walls of the four corners of the house on each floor to purify and protect the house--well--she'd been prepared to find holes in her walls.

She _hadn't_ been prepared to find the whole house looking as if a nuclear bomb had been set off inside of it.

_How am I gonna explain this to Pete?_

"The poltergeist…" Sam winced as he appeared by their side, looking at the damage before bringing his hand to his throat, rubbing it as if it was sore. "It realized what we were trying to do and it did its best to stop us."

Chloe spared him a quick look and then did a double-take, gasping when she noticed the dark line around his throat. "What _happened_ to you?" she whispered, letting go of Lindsay's hand to going to stand in front of Sam, her fingers going to his throat, softly trailing the ugly mark.

Sam shivered and gulped, his Adams Apple bobbing under her touch.

Blushing, realizing how _forward_ she'd just been, Chloe averted her gaze and cleared her throat. "Was that the poltergeist's doing?"

"Uh, _yeah_." Sam nodded as Lindsay grabbed onto Chloe, hugging her with a shiver. "It tried to strangle me with the electric cord of that tall lamp in the living room. Dean had to cut the cord off from around my neck…"

Chloe's eyes went wide and she looked up into his face his horror.

"Okay, according to Missouri, this should be it." Dean announced as he stalked towards them, looking tired and sore, but otherwise quite content and satisfied. "The poltergeist and all evil should be gone."

"Should be?" Chloe asked, picking up on those two words immediately, hating the cold fingers she felt were tracing up her spinal cord, telling herself they were just her imagination. Telling herself that it was all over. "She isn't sure?"

The shorter Winchester brother turned to her seriously. "You're going to be okay, Chloe."

Chloe didn't understand it. She felt so _safe_ with these two strangers that she believed Dean, but she wondered if she'd continue believing that promise when Sam and Dean left. She knew they would leave them very soon, and she was dreading it.

Sam gave her a small smile before leaving to probably find Missouri, who was walking the house trying to see if she could find energies still.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Dean shoved his hands into his pants' pockets and gave her a smile that did funny things with her heart. "We'll be leaving tonight, after we help put some order to this place."

"Thank you." Chloe smiled, trying to be brave although she could still feel such _coldness_ in her bones.

Dean's smile vanished as he looked at her contemplatively, tilting his head slightly. "You're still frightened."

Her smile wavered slightly and she looked down at Lindsay, seeing the young girl, hair wild and frizzy, looking up at her with wide, worried eyes. Chloe couldn't let herself show any weakness, Lindsay and Peter were counting on her to be the strong, brave adult.

She wouldn't scare the children with her foolish feelings.

"No, I—I'm fine." Chloe wouldn't look at Dean, didn't _need_ to, she could feel his penetrating gaze on her face.

"Are you sure?" Dean asked, sounding a little uncomfortable as he did. "Because, uh, Sammy and I could, I don't know, stay until the father of the kids appears."

She looked up at Dean's uncomfortable expression and smiled more genuinely. "I couldn't impose on you guys more than I already have. I mean, you haven't come out and said exactly what it is you two do, but I'm guessing it's not Accounting."

Dean grinned in amusement. "I guess you could say that."

She returned the grin, while adjusting Peter's weight onto her other hip. "I can't keep you guys here when there are other people who need your, uh, help too."

The handsome man nodded.

There was a moment's silence, before Chloe's cellular began to ring in her back pocket. "Uh, Dean, can you hold Peter for a second?" Without giving the surprised man a second to be able to form some excuse or back away, Chloe passed Peter into his arms and reached for her phone. "Chloe Sullivan."

_"Chloe?_" Pete's voice could be heard through the static. "_Is everything all right? I've been trying to get through to you all day but every time I tried my call would never go through. Did something happen? Are the kids okay?"_

"_PETE!_" The blonde gasped in relief. "Where _are_ you? We're all fine, but you? _You're_ in _big_ trouble mister! Where _are_ you?"

"Daddy!" Lindsay giggled, the worry leaving her blue eyes immediately.

"_Uh, yeah. About where I am?_" Pete sounded a bit nervous. "_Well, I'm actually in Oklahoma at the moment_."

Chloe blinked. "What are you doing in _Oklahoma_?"

"_I'm not, uh, completely sure."_ Pete announced sheepishly. "_All I remember is getting a couple of drinks at the bar and the next thing I know is that I'm being shaken awake by the bus attendant saying that we'd arrived in Tulsa_."

Chloe groaned, closing her eyes and placing her palm to her forehead. "Tell me that you're on the next bus out of there."

"_Yeah, already on it_." Her friend promised, sounding miserable. "_Chloe, I'm so sorry…I…I've been a bit unpredictable ever since Hailey--and you've been such a good friend--._"

"Don't apologize to _me_, Pete Ross." The blonde sighed, turning her back on Dean. "You save all of that for when you're here with your kids. Sure, Peter hasn't realized all that's been going on, but Lindsay _has_, and she's been worried sick about you!"

"_Is she--? Can I talk to her_?"

Hearing the longing in her friend's voice, Chloe sighed. "Sure." She turned back to the others, surprised to see Dean Winchester smiling at Peter as the cute boy poked him in the face. "Uh, Lindsay, baby? You're daddy wants to talk to you."

Lindsay's pretty little face broke out into a large, mega-watt smile as she took the cellular Chloe offered her and put it to her ear. "Daddy! Are you alright? Why weren't you here to tuck us in bed last night? The monster came back!"

Knowing that Pete would consider the last comment to be about a figment of Lindsay's imagination, Chloe sighed, realizing that when her friend came back she'd have a lot of explaining to do.

"_Juice_?" Peter asked Dean, finger pressing into the dimple in the man's cheek.

Dean chuckled and turned to Chloe. "You sure weren't kidding when you said this kid was a juice-junkie. I don't think I've heard him say another word."

Chloe paused, surveying the picture of man and child. If she hadn't seen it herself, she knew that she would never be able to picture Dean Winchester with a child, and yet, he looked at ease and enthralled with Peter now that he'd gotten over his initial terror.

"Okay daddy. I miss you too." Lindsay couldn't have looked happier if Barney had suddenly appeared in the room. "I love you too." She sent loud kisses through the cellular. "Bye." The pretty, caramel-skinned child looked up at the adults. "Daddy says he'll be home tomorrow."

Taking the cell-phone back, Chloe ruffled Lindsay's frizzy hair affectionately. "You know, kiddo, when your dad sees the mess this house is in, he's gonna kill us."

Lindsay grinned at that. "Not if we clean it first! He'll never have to know."

"You're gonna be problems when you're a teenager." Dean predicted with a bark of amused laughter at the mischief in the child's eyes. He turned his attention on Peter, who'd decided that the necklace Dean was wearing was the most fascinating thing in the whole world. "How about we help your Aunt Chloe clean up and then we can all have some juice?"

Peter's eyes widened and he smiled toothily. "Juice?"

Dean grinned back brightly. "Yeah, juice."

* * *

"You know, bro, I never took you for the voyeur type." Dean Winchester announced sleepily, late into the night as they sat in the Impala, uncomfortable and a bit cold. The elder brother sighed, arms folded over his chest, eyes closed as he sat in the driver's seat.

"Dean, sometimes I wonder if you listen to the things you say." Sam muttered, sitting in the front passenger's seat, eyes on the house across the street. He knew that Missouri had said that she couldn't sense any energy left in the house, and he knew that they should be off on the road, but for some reason Sam couldn't leave.

Something didn't feel right, he'd felt it, and he was almost sure that Chloe had as well, although she'd done her best to ignore it or at least pretend that she was ignoring it.

"All I'm saying is," Dean yawned sleepily. "That Missouri says that the house is clean. Job done. We should be off. You know that we have to find dad and--."

"I _know,_ Dean." Sam grounded his teeth. He more than anyone else wanted to find their father and find out what he knew about the creature that'd killed both their mother and Jess; for months now finding their father had been Sam's obsession, his only reason to live--but right now he _needed_ to stay here and make sure that Chloe and the children were alright.

He _needed_ to sit out here in the Impala and keep a watch on her window, to make sure that the vision he'd had of her didn't come true. If Sam just closed his eyes at that moment he could remember the look of terror on Chloe's face as she pounded desperately on her bedroom window, screaming for help.

Sam just, he just didn't want her to do that, to be screaming for help, and he not be there to help her. He—he didn't want to let her down the way he had Jess.

And something deep within him told him that if he left with Dean now he'd be doing just that.

_And I won't--I WON'T._

Usually Dean would be complaining more about how he could be in a nice comfy bed at the moment, but he only sighed and leaned back further in his seat. "She _was_ still frightened."

Sam frowned and turned to look at his brother in surprise. "She told you that?"

"No." The elder Winchester brother shook his head, eyes still closed. "But it was a look in her eyes. She looked, like, I don't know. Like she could still feel something in the house or something." He paused. "Of course, it could have just been shock, you know. Despite the fact that she reacted a _lot_ better than most civilians when they find out about what goes bump in the dark--she _is_ still a lone female woman in a large house with two children. She's obviously not safe—if not from the supernatural—than from some bastard human trying to take advantage of the situation."

Sam sent his brother a look. Apparently Dean had been giving this situation a lot of thought as well.

How…_odd_.

Usually Dean never really gave much thought to the people they'd saved after they saved them.

Then again, Chloe _was_ extremely pretty, and Dean had _always_ been known to have a weakness for pretty things.

Shaking his head, Sam sent a look towards the windows of Chloe's room and looked away, quickly doing a double-take, eyes widening in horror as he watched his vision happening right before his very eyes…

Chloe's figure was in the window, pounding on it, eyes wide in terror, mouth moving in screams that were strangely muted.

"_Dean_!" Sam was out of the Impala in a second. "It's happening!"

* * *

**_A LITTLE WHILE BEFORE_**

Chloe smiled as she looked through the curtains at the Impala, as it sat parked on the other side of the street. She could easily see the dark figures of the Winchester brothers as they sat stiffly in the seats, hugging themselves to keep warm, sending glances at the house every couple of minutes.

They were keeping watch over them.

Chloe would have asked the brothers to spend the night in the house if they had no other place to go for the night--in fact, she _had_--but both had declined, said that they had places to be and people to see.

And yet there they were, parked outside, uncomfortable and cold…making sure that nothing happened to Chloe and the children.

A smile touched Chloe's lips as she turned away from the window and made her way to the bed, where Peter and Lindsay were sleeping peacefully. Even though they'd been reassured that everything was fine, the children—mainly Lindsay—had looked frightened at the thought of sleeping in their own rooms, and to be truthful, Chloe hadn't felt so safe either.

So the three of them were making use of Chloe's bed, sleeping. Well, Chloe would have been sleeping if it wasn't for the fact that it was so uncommonly chilly, and had been for the last hour or so. Not only did she have an uncomfortable chill in her spine, but Chloe felt uneasy and couldn't help but get the feeling that she was being watched.

_Then again I AM being watched--by the Winchesters_!

Grinning, Chloe got back into bed and giggled when Peter turned in his sleep, searching the heat of her body, cuddling up against her, and in seconds Lindsay had done the same.

_These kids are really just too cute._

The sound of creaking caused her gaze to shoot from the children to the door, and her eyes widened when she saw the handle rattle.

_It's—it's Pete. He got home early and when he went to check on the children and found them out of their rooms he came to check on me_.

But then her vain hopes were dashed to pieces when the door creaked open--the door she'd _locked_ shut creaked open--and with it came a gust of air so chilly the children shivered in their sleep and pressed closer to her.

Her eyes widened further as her breaths grew rapid as the door closed shut loudly, and the temperature in the room dropped drastically, vapor rising from her mouth once more.

_No_…

Suddenly the bed began to shake violently and _levitate_, causing Chloe to scream and wake up the children. Peter began to cry, sleepy and confused as to what was going on, and Lindsay rubbed her eyes, freezing when she realized that the bed beneath them was hovering up in the air, almost touching the ceiling.

Chloe turned and stumbled out of the bed, crying out in pain as she fell the long way back down to the ground. She winced, picking herself up from the floor and looking up at the two wide-eyed, terrified children.

"Lindsay! Pass me Peter, and when I have him down, I need you to jump!"

Lindsay shook her head, whimpering, froze in terror. "I want my daddy!"

Chloe looked up, seeing how closer they were getting to the ceiling.

_It's going to crush them_!

"_Lindsay_!" Chloe knew that she looked terrified and was in no way comforting the young child, but she didn't have time to be brave. "_Do it_!"

The young girl closed her eyes tightly before taking in a deep breath and pushing her crying little brother out of the bed.

The young boy screamed as he fell through the air.

Chloe caught him, hugging him to her tightly and planting a relieved kiss on his forehead before putting him on the ground and raising her arms again. "Lindsay, I need you to jump now!"

The girl shook her head, hands above her head, palms pressed against the ceiling, as if trying to push it away as the bed continued to rise.

"_Lindsay_!" Despair in her every feature, Chloe looked up. "_Jump_!"

"_No_! I want my mommy!" The space between the ceiling and the bed continued to grow smaller and smaller.

"_Lindsay Sarah Ross! YOU JUMP THIS INSTANCE_!"

Something in Chloe's voice must have done it, because Lindsay took her palms away from the ceiling and jumped off of the bed, screaming until she collided with Chloe, sending them both toppling to the carpet.

Chloe was crying as she hugged the terrified, crying girl to her, before getting up from the floor, picking up Peter, holding Lindsay's hand, and rushing to the door--only to find it locked.

"_No_." Putting Peter down and ordering Lindsay to hold his hand and never let go, the blonde grabbed the door handle with both hands and pulled with all of her might, but it didn't budge. "_LET US OUT!_"

Kicking the door, Chloe turned and looked all around the room, the vapor from their breaths getting thicker.

Something was going to happen, and she needed to get herself and the kids out of there before it did.

But _how_?

_Sam and Dean_.

Her eyes widened as Chloe rushed to the bedroom window and began to bang her fists against the glass as hard as she could. "_DEAN!_" She screamed so loudly her throat hurt, eyes on the Impala across the street. "_SAM!_" Things behind her began to explode, the picture frames--the mirror--the bedside lamp. "_HELP US! IT'S STILL HERE!_"

Feeling the glass go cold beneath her touch, Chloe cried out and backed away as ice rose from the window frame, engulfing the glass, causing it to crackle slightly as words began to engrave themselves into the thin sleets of ice.

_You…can…never…escape…Chloe…_

"_How--_?" Chloe whispered, backing up into the door. "How—do does it know my name?"

The cold air concentrated in the middle of the room, swirling visibly around a tall, ghastly form as it began to form in the shadows, in the coldness.

Lindsay shrieked in horror as the form continued to slowly materialize, heading towards them one step at a time.

_I don't understand--_. Chloe's mind was working rapidly. _Didn't Lindsay say the thing she saw was on fire? This—this must be something different._

"CHLOE!" Dean Winchester's voice called on the other side of the door.

"_Dean_!" Chloe turned, pounding her fist against the door. "Dean! Something's in here with us! _Help_!"

"Stand away from the door, we're going to kick it down!" Sam's voice commanded and Chloe grabbed the children, pulling them away quickly in time for there to be a sound on the other side of the door, and suddenly it flew open, the two Winchester brothers stood in the doorways, guns in their hands.

Chloe didn't understand why ghosts or demons or whatever would be frightened of _guns_, but the ghastly thing disappeared right before the sound of the guns went off. It'd given up its corporal form, and yet its presence was still here--as made known by the bedside table flinging itself at Dean's head, only missing because the man dodged it at the last possible moment, causing it to smash against the wall behind him.

"We got to get you guys out of here!" Sam hurried to Chloe and grabbed Lindsay. "We have to make a run for it."

"Yeah." Dean's eyes were on the windows, on the words carved into the ice, before he nodded, and took Peter from Chloe's arms. "Whatever this thing is, it's pissed!"

"Ready to make a run for it?" Sam asked Chloe, holding a crying, shivering Lindsay in his arms.

Chloe nodded.

"Good. Let's get out of here!" Dean answered as he held Peter with one hand and his gun in the other.

The men took off and Chloe after them, hurrying through the hall and down the stairs, dodging the things that were being thrown at them. Chloe nearly tripped once or twice, and was a little behind the others because of that, but she was right on their tails as they rushed out of the front door.

She would have made it too--if suddenly coldness hadn't entered her body and something hadn't kicked her feet out from beneath her, causing her to scream as she fell face-first into the wooden floor.

Chloe looked up at the door in time to see Dean and Sam, safely outside, look back in surprise at the sound of her scream. Their eyes, wide in horror, were the last thing she saw before the front door slammed shut on its own, and another scream erupted from her throat as she was dragged rapidly against the floor by means invisible.

Chloe struggled, she kicked and dug her nails into the wood floor, watching in horror as her fingernails left scratch marks on the floor.

Hearing that eerily familiar sound of claws against wood, Chloe screamed and let go of her hold on the ground when the words: _never escape…never escape…never escape_, began to be scratched on the floor all around her.

Her gaze went up when dust began to fall on the floor, and Chloe's eyes widened when she saw other words: _we found you…we found you…we found you…_ being scratched in the walls and ceiling.

"_WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME_?" She screamed as the invisible thing continued to drag her through the house rapidly.

She could hear pounding on the front door, could hear Dean and Sam screaming from outside that they were coming…but she also could see all the furniture throwing itself against the front door, barricading it quite effectively.

Suddenly there was a cool blast of air so cold she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she found herself lying in the middle of Lindsay's room. Chloe groaned, looking around her, confused. What was going on? She'd been on the bottom floor a second ago being dragged by something--hadn't she? If so, how had she gotten--?

Chloe didn't even have time to scream as her body was picked up by means unseen and she was flung backwards against the wall, the blow leaving her breathless and dizzy, wondering why the back of her head felt wet and why there was a strong metallic scent in the air.

Her vision began to waver slightly and she felt her head so _fuzzy_, wondering why the room was shifting at such odd angles--and then as her vision cleared again she widened in her eyes in horror when she realized that the room _wasn't_ turning, _she was_.

Or, better said, she was being dragged up the wall and by the time she'd realized it, she was plastered against the ceiling, unable to move.

"_CHLOE?_" Dean could be heard screaming from down below--from _inside_.

"HELP ME!" Chloe screamed with the little bit of strength she had left in her, and even _that_ was beginning to drain away.

"_WE'RE COMING_!" Sam yelled, and the sound of footsteps on the stairs heralded their appearance before the door was kicked down and the Winchester brothers hurried into the room, freezing as they saw her plastered up against the ceiling.

Horror, terror, _agony_ was plastered in their suddenly paled faces as they looked up at her.

And Chloe suddenly remembered how it was that their mother, and this _Jess_ person had died.

The throb in the back of her head grew incessantly, and she whimpered as she saw blood dripping from her hair down onto the ground, falling onto Sam and Dean's horrified, upturned faces.

Chloe closed her eyes tightly, crying.

She was going to die.

* * *

Hey everyone! So, thus ends chapter three! How about a review?


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_LOVED the reviews people! I'm so glad that so many people are reading and enjoying this story so far! I'm enjoying writing it, and after watching the season premiere of Season 4 last night I was so inspired to continue-I have so much to plan for! Can I just say-Sammy? HOTTER THAN EVER! Dean? Well, there's no way Dean can be hotter, lol._

_Okay. Enough said. ONTO THE NEXT CHAPTER!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The Winchester brothers were frozen in horror as they watched Chloe crying, pinned to the ceiling in the same way that the most important women in their lives had been before being killed violently.

They were caught up in their worst memories, the ones that inspired their worst nightmares. Dean was suddenly a frightened little child, watching as his mother went up in flames above his brother's crib, and Sam was stuck in the memory of looking up in bed and seeing his girlfriend whimper his name before she _too_ went up in an unholy burst of fire.

Chloe continued to cry, her tears and the blood mixed, tinting parts of her hair red, dripping down upon their faces.

Dean shook off the horror before his younger brother, and went to the bed to push it towards where Chloe was pinned so he could climb on it and see if he could somehow pull her down from the roof. But before Dean could push the bed more than a couple of inches he felt horribly cold, and he cried out as he was suddenly thrown back, body immobilized against the wall.

"Dean!" Sam turned to his brother, finally broken out of his horrifying memories, only to be thrown against the opposite wall, unable to move anything—even his head.

"_Damn it!_" Dean cursed, trying to struggle against the hold on his body and yet not moving an inch.

"It's so _cold_." Chloe whispered from above them, eyes close shut. "So _cold_."

"Chloe?" Sam called, eyes wide in worry, she seemed to be going into shock. "Chloe!"

"_Cold_." Chloe whimpered, body visibly shaking, her breath coming out in thick vapors, lips turning blue.

Dean noticed the slight shimmer of mist appearing around Chloe's body, and struggled further as he realized _why_ she was suddenly so cold while he and Sam were much warmer. "Leave her alone you son of a bitch! Don't you _touch_ her!"

The elder Winchester suddenly doubted that this was the same thing that'd killed their mom and Jess. Both of the aforementioned women had gone up in flames, and yet Chloe was slowly _freezing_ to death, her skin sickly pale, her lips _purple_.

Seeing Chloe's eyes beginning to slowly close, Sam felt terror enter his body. "CHLOE! Stay awake! STAY AWAKE!"

The young woman whimpered and forced her eyes open, green eyes connecting with his blue/green ones, her pupils dilate and contracting like crazy.

"Dean?" Sam called, not daring to take his eyes from Chloe's, frightened that the moment he did she'd close her eyes and give in. "We've got to do something!"

"I _know_ Sammy!" Dean snapped, frustrated that this thing had him immobile, annoyed with himself for having gotten caught.

Suddenly the closet doors flew open and a figure on fire stood in the middle of the darkness, the sound of the flames crackling in the night as it emerged from the closet.

Dean struggled harder, realizing that this was something else, this could very well be the thing that'd killed his mother! He needed to get free, rescue Chloe, and kill this son of a bitch and maybe then he could put the past behind him.

The elder Winchester brother was still struggling when one whispered word from his brother stilled him completely.

"_Mother_?" Dean froze, eyes wide as he turned to look at the thing of fire that now stood right beneath Chloe.

It—it _couldn't_ be!

And yet, the fire died down in a gust of wind and suddenly before them stood Mary Winchester, wearing the same nightgown she'd worn the last time Dean had seen her-the night that-.

The ghost of Mary Winchester walked up to her son and smiled that smile that he always remembered, reaching forwards and skimming her hand over his cheek fondly like she would when he was a child. "_Dean._"

He was frozen, yet this time not in terror. Hazel eyes widened and filled with tears that wouldn't be shed as he looked upon the one face he'd prayed to see again, if only once. "_Mom_."

"You grew up to be a handsome man." Mary's eyes twinkled with pride. "Just try and behave with the women, son. Look for someone to settle down with. You're not getting any younger you know."

Dean's eyes widened, and he blushed in shame. Apparently the dead knew a lot about their living loved ones-or maybe Mary Winchester was the exception to the rule.

With a knowing grin, Mary Winchester turned her back on Dean and went to where Sam was held against the wall. "Sam."

Emotions flittered desperately over the young Winchester's face as he beheld the face of his mother, face to face, for the first time since he was 6 months old. His eyes glimmered with tears, and unlike his brother, a few escaped as he couldn't tear his eyes from his mother.

"I'm sorry." Mary whispered to her son, emotion thick in her voice.

Confusion clouded over Sam's features. "For what?"

Regret, pain and other emotions darkened Mary's eyes as she pulled away, going to where Chloe was struggling to remain awake, her lips nearly black, her skin white as a sheet, her breaths short and labored. "Chloe? Stay awake. It'll transport you if you fall asleep."

The young woman whimpered, her teeth chattering, obviously fighting to keep her eyes opened.

"You have to travel with my sons, Chloe." The female Winchester surprised everyone in the room with those words. "If I had not been here he would have you now, and he must never have you. _Never_." She turned to look at her sons, her face serious. "Now that they have found her again, they will continue looking for her. She will never be safe again until this is over. He will _always_ search for her."

"Who?" Dean cleared his throat when his voice came out croaked. "Who is after her?"

Mary sighed as she looked at her eldest. "The one _you_ look for."

Sam gasped.

Dean's eyes widened. "Who did this to you, mom?" He struggled against the invisible binds that held him once more. "Who's after Chloe? Tell me so I can kill him and end this!"

Mary looked at her sons with sadness before turning her back on them and looking up at the cold vapor surrounding and thickening around Chloe. "You." She addressed the spirit. "Get out of my house, leave that girl alone, and _let go of my sons_."

As she said that, flames consumed the spirit once more, the heat causing Dean to look away, worried since Chloe was right above his mother.

And then Mary Winchester took off into the air, going through Chloe's body and up through the ceiling of the roof, where there was the sound of an inhuman screech and then there was nothing.

Sam and Dean felt the power that'd immobilized them disappear the same time Chloe screamed as she began to fall. Sam raced forwards and caught the screaming blonde, the force of her body colliding into his sending them both to the ground.

Dean stood frozen, looking around him in shock before shaking it off and hurrying to where Chloe and Sam were still plastered on the ground, the blonde's shivering body resting on Sam's.

"Are you guys okay?" He asked as he pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around Chloe's shoulders, which were horribly cold to the touch.

"Y-y-yes." Chloe stammered, her teeth chattering as she straddled Sam on the floor.

"Sam?" Dean asked when he brother didn't answer, just remained still on the floor, looking up at the ceiling as if listening to something.

"_Now_ its over." Sam whispered, before looking at Chloe and then at Dean. "Let's get out of here?"

Dean grinned. "I've seen enough of this house to last me a lifetime."

Chloe suddenly froze, remembering something that they'd all forgotten in the excitement. "The children!"

"_CHLOE_?" They heard a male voice calling from downstairs.

The blonde paused and then closed her eyes in relief. "_Pete_."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"So you're telling me that there was a poltergeist in this house and that it is the reason the place looks like World War III took place inside?" Pete asked as he sat on the front steps, Peter sleeping in his lap and Lindsay dozing off with her head resting against him.

"Yeah." Chloe nodded, hugging herself. "A true-to-God poltergeist-purely supernatural, not one meteor rock in sight."

Pete gulped, looking behind him at the entrance of the house. "I-and I _left_ my family here by themselves?"

"Don't blame yourself, Pete." Chloe ordered. "There was no way you could have known."

"You think you'd be safe out of Smallville." Pete snorted, before closing his eyes for a moment, hearing voices inside of the house. "So, these ghostbusters and the psychic you have in my house right now are doing _what_ exactly?"

"Making sure that the house is empty of any sort of supernatural energy." Chloe explained, glad to be outside in the rays of the newly risen sun, still wearing Dean's leather jacket and thawing little by little.

"Do you-do you think it's empty?" Pete asked.

Chloe looked behind him at the open door of the house and nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah, it's gone. I don't-I don't feel anything anymore."

Pete frowned. "How did you, feel it, anyway? I remember you saying you didn't like the feel to the house when we moved in." He paused, eyes widening. "Do you think its exposure to the meteor rocks? That it's made you sensitive to ghosts and the paranormal?"

"That's ridiculous, Pete." Chloe scoffed.

"No, it isn't." The handsome, dark man shook his head stubbornly. "Think about it Chlo. All those meteor freaks? Most of them got powers similar to whatever they were doing when infected. Example A, Desiree Atkins was having uh, relations with her guy when the shower fell-BOOM she has pheromone powers."

Chloe frowned. "But I wasn't there when the meteors fell."

"But you've been in contact with more freaks and meters than anyone else I know, Chlo, and all the whole time you were investigating the _unusual_." Pete pressed. "Who says that you didn't get 'freaked' into sensing the _unusual_?"

Chloe frowned. Stranger things had been known to happen…especially to her. "I—Pete—I don't like where this is going. Almost all the freaks I know are insane and-." She stopped, looking up at Pete. "I'm going with them."

"With the freaks?" Pete blinked, confused.

"No, with the ghostbus-with Dean and Sam." Chloe shook her head. "The ghost-their mother-she said I had to go with them, that there was something after me. I—it was the same thing that killed her."

Pete frowned. "Chloe, you can't seriously consider leaving with some strangers just because a ghost told you to!" He looked horrified. "Look, Chlo, if something is after you Clark will take care of it. You and I both know that he's able to take care of the _unusual_—and that he'd _kill_ to keep you safe."

"Pete," Chloe sighed, not meeting her friend's gaze. "Clark can't always be there to save me…and I'm not going to run away from this thing. Mary Winchester said that it would always hunt me, and since Dean and Sam are hunting _it_, I think I'd rather be on the offensive than on the defensive."

And yet Pete just wouldn't let go of his resolve to keep her there. "I'm going to call Clark."

"Calling Clark isn't going to change anything, Pete." Chloe went to kneel in front of him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I let you go when you moved to Wichita to start afresh, and now I need _you_ to let _me_ go."

He closed his eyes. "Chloe. It could be _dangerous_."

"It _will_ be dangerous." She nodded her agreement. "But I know its something I have to do."

Peter opened his eyes and sighed. "If those two don't take care of you I'll leave the kids with Lana and hunt them down."

"You do that." She grinned.

Hearing someone clear their voice from the doorway, both turned to see Missouri Moseley and the boys behind them.

"What's the verdict?" Pete asked the older, African American woman.

"The house is now empty." Missouri smiled at him, before turning her expression on Chloe. "One day I'll figure out what's wrong with your aura." And with that she walked away, leaving everyone in awkward silence.

Chloe, never having been one to stand silence, stood and cleared her throat. "So…"

"We'll wait in the car while you pack. Just don't take too long, we have a lot of ground to cover before nightfall." Dean announced before shouldering past his bother and going towards the Impala.

Pete frowned at Dean's back.

"That was my brother's retarded way of asking you to come along with us." Sam smiled, slightly embarrassed.

She smiled back at him. "I have little to pack. I'll be there in a minute."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Hours Later**

She'd packed her things, said her goodbyes to Pete and the children, and had gotten into the Impala to an uncomfortable silence. The young blonde had stayed in the backseat, earphones on and typing quick explanatory emails to her friends and family-knowing that she would soon be hearing from both her cousin Lois from Metropolis, and Clark.

Only _many _hours later, when Dean grew tired and Sam offered to drive, did Chloe speak, offering Dean the backseat so he could sleep. The sandy-blonde had given her a slightly embarrassed smile and thanked her. They'd parked the car, everyone had changed seats, and started off again.

An hour later Dean was snoring.

"The house _was_ empty, right?" Chloe whispered into the darkness some hours later, laptop off and in her small backpack filled with clothes and other necessities. "I didn't just leave Pete and the kids in a haunted house, right?"

"They're fine." Sam whispered back as they drove on the lonely highway. "Missouri didn't feel _anything_, and this time, neither did I."

"I—I didn't either." Chloe admitted.

Sam spared her a quick look before returning his gaze to the road. "My mother's ghost wasn't there anymore either." He made a little noise. "Missouri says that my mom's spirit and the poltergeist's energies cancelled each other out. She destroyed herself going after that thing." He cleared his throat but still his voice was hoarse with emotion. "Why would she do something like that?"

For Chloe, the answer was simple.

"To protect her sons." She paused. "Even though Mary was a ghost, she was still your mother and a mother's instinct is to always protect her children, no matter _what_."

_Unlike my mom_.

"I didn't feel anything inside the house either." Chloe closed her eyes, shivering as she remembered her mother's eyes deadly black, and the sneer on her face as her fingernails bit angrily into Chloe's skin. "I felt something was wrong with the house, I don't know how, but I did. At least—at least I know that Pete and the kids are fine now-although I don't know _how_ I know it. Not really."

"Was-." Sam cleared his throat once more. "Do you have a mother?"

Chloe blinked her eyes open, turning to look at him in surprise. "No."

Sam frowned, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. "Did she die in a freak fire accident when you were young? Or did she die in _any_ kind of freak accident?"

Chloe shook her head. "No. When I was eight my mother's eyes turned midnight black and she wasn't my mother anymore. She-she hurt me. She tried to take me somewhere—_wanted_ to take me somewhere—said she needed to." The blonde was deep in her memories, and didn't notice the way Sam's eyes widened at what she said.

"What-what stopped her from taking you?" Sam asked.

"Your father."

Sam's head spun in her direction. "_What_?"

Chloe sighed, turning up the heat in the car. "It's a good thing I'm not sleepy, because I have a feeling we have a lot to say to each other."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Okay, the next chapter the trip will have been together for some time traveling and will be a lot closer and comfortable around each other.**

**Review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that this chapter takes place __**a couple of months after the last chapter**__, so things between Chloe and the boys have gotten comfortable and they are getting along well now and know each others stories (everything about the boys…and about Smallville and meteor freaks-although they __**don't know about Clark's abilities**__, Chloe hasn't told them since it isn't her story to tell)._

_Also, remember that this is AU Smallville! In this universe Lois Lane DID NOT go to Smallville so she doesn't know anyone from there except for Chloe! But she DOES know about meteor freaks and such because of Chloe._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

In a seedy little motel room in Springfield, Illinois, three people sat cramped in their two-bed room, all of them busy. Sam was calling more and more of his father's old friends trying to see if someone could locate him (something the youngest Winchester had been doing ever since they'd left Kansas a couple of months ago), and Dean was going over their father's journal _once more_ to see if it had any indication of where their father was and why he wasn't getting into contact with them.

Chloe, on the other hand, was relaxed, wearing a pair of short shorts and Clark's jersey, enjoying a 'chatting' session with Lois as she tuned out the boys.

Honestly, Chloe had always been more at ease with men, but never _this_ at ease. Sure, it'd been _way_ uncomfortable at first, especially when it came to sleeping arrangements. The boys had decided that it wasn't safe for Chloe to have a room by herself-what if the thing after her found her while she was there by herself and the boys were sleeping in another room? So they'd decided to share rooms and the boys would take turns using the extra bed or sleeping on the floor.

It'd been, uh, a _learning_ experience for them all. Sam and Dean had found out what it was like to have a female inspecting their hygiene and nagging them to put down the toilet seat when they were finished (although Sam had some experience thanks to having lived with Jess for a year before she was killed), and Chloe discovered that it was true, most men _did_ wake up with 'morning wood', which was embarrassing to them and completely amusing for her.

What was _not_ amusing however was whenever one of the boys would forget their clothes in the room while bathing. They'd have to come out…wrapped in only towels…and that was mean of them.

_Horrible_, actually, because now she had mental images of both Sam and Dean in only a towel, and no normal girl could have such images in their heads and not go insane…with _lust_.

Still, they were her roomies and she wasn't about to ruin yet _another_ relationship with a crush, so she suppressed any _I-Want-You-Sans-Towel-NOW_ desires she had at times-the boys learnt to put down the toilet seat-and all was fine.

_Army Brat says: I miss you, Little Cuz. I don't get why exactly you have to be touring with those two hunks you keep telling me about, but I miss you. Is there any chance of you guys coming to Metropolis soon?_

_C.S. says: I miss you too Lo! And I don't know about the Metropolis thing, but I COULD run it through with the boys. Who knows? Maybe we can go there soon._

_Army Brat says: That would be so great! :D_

_Army Brat says: We could all go clubbing together! I would get one hunk and you the next!_

_C.S. says: __**raises eyebrow**__ I thought you were in a relationship?_

_Army Brat says: Um, yeah._

_C.S. says: Lo, you're incorrigible._

_Army Brat says: I know._

_C.S. says: LOL. _

"Caleb hasn't heard from him?" Dean asked Sam as soon as he ended the call, causing Chloe to look up from her screen at the brothers.

"Nope." Sam shook his head in disappointment. "Neither has Jefferson or Pastor Jim." He sighed. "What about the journal? Any leads in there?"

Dean shook his head, eyes on said journal. "No, same as the last time I looked, then again, there's a lot I just can't make out." He flipped a page and snorted. "I love dad, but I swear, he writes like freakin' yoda."

Chloe grinned at Dean. He was such a smartass.

"Maybe we should call the Feds." Sam clasped his hands in front of him. "File a missing persons report."

Dean looked up from the worn journal in slight annoyance. "Look, we talked about this already. Dad would be _pissed_ if we put the Feds on his tail."

"I don't _care_ anymore." Sam frowned, annoyed as well. "After all that happened back in Kansas—after us leaving tons of voicemails about Chloe and how she's in danger and how we need his help—Dean, he should be here with us. He should have been there with us in Kansas, you said so yourself. You called him and _nothing_."

Dean sent his brother a frustrated look and closed the journal, standing up as his cellular began to ring. "Dad has his reasons for doing whatever he's doing, Sam." He went to his bag, trying to find his cell as it rang. "Where in the world _is_ that crap?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Second pocket on the right side."

Dean checked it and found his cellular. The sandy-blonde turned and grinned at the female on her bed. "What would I do without you in my life, gorgeous?"

"Save it for the drunk bimbos you like to pick up, Winchester." Chloe announced, returning her attention to her computer, proud at herself for not blushing.

"Ouch, you hurt me right here." Dean tapped his chest above his heart.

Chloe rolled her eyes and read what Lois had typed in while she was paying attention to the boys' conversation.

_Army Brat says: I've heard from Lucy-surprise surprise. She's doing great in that school in Europe. I sometimes envy her, you know? She gets to have the glamorous life at an expensive overseas school-and I get stuck with the General._

_C.S. says: You miss her, huh?_

_Army Brat says: Yeah, which really makes me think that I'm a closet masochist, because that girl is a pain in the butt!_

_C.S. says: LOL!_

"He could be _dead_, Dean!" Sam obviously hadn't been finished with his rant.

"Don't _say_ that!" Dean scolded, forgetting all about the cell phone ringing in his hand. "He's fine. He's—he's-."

"He's _what_?" Sam interrupted. "He's hiding? He's busy?"

Deciding not to answer that, Dean flipped open his cellular and froze when he saw the screen, a smile touching his face. "I don't believe it."

"What?" Chloe asked, tearing her gaze from her laptop's screen. "Is everything alright?"

Dean sat down next to her on her bed, looking at the cellular with an odd expression on his face.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"It's, uh, it's a _text message_." Dean finally answered, eyes still on his phone. "It's coordinates." He turned to Chloe. "Hey Chlo, you think you can pause the cybersex for a minute and check it out for us? Tell us where these coordinates are for?"

"One, I'm talking to my _cousin_." Chloe announced, taking the phone from Dean, looking at the coordinates and nodding. "And two, if I _were_ having cybersex, you two would _hear_ it." She typed a quick _brb_ to Lois and went onto the website necessary, typing in the coordinates. "I'm _very_ loud."

She could have _sworn_ she heard gulping coming from Sam.

Dean, on the other hand, was grinning lecherously at her. "Oh baby, I knew you'd be a screamer. You're all mouth normally, why not when you're at the brink of ecstasy?"

"Bite me." Chloe _knew_ she was blushing and hated it.

"Tell me where and I'll happily comply." Dean responded.

"_Dean_." Sam sounded annoyed.

"_Spoilsport."_ The elder Winchester bemoaned.

Chloe chuckled, thoroughly amused and somewhat flustered as she continued typing and checking. "So you think your father sent you guys the coordinates?"

"Well, he's done it before when I was hunting alone." Dean answered.

"_Please_." Sam snorted. "The guy can barely work a _toaster_."

Chloe bit down on her lip to keep from giggling.

"Sam, this is _good news_." Dean, who was looking over Chloe's shoulder, looked up at his brother. "It means he's okay."

"And is just ignoring us." Chloe grumbled, annoyed with John Winchester.

"_Thank_ you!" Sam threw his hands into the air. "Someone is getting my point!"

"Will you two quite bitchin'?" Dean pleaded.

"Only if you beg." Chloe responded cheekily.

Dean suddenly grinned and spoke lower into her ear. "Didn't know you were into that sorta kink, sweetheart."

A shiver raced down her spine, but Chloe ignored it. "Found it."

"Where do the coordinates point?" Sam asked, going to sit down on Chloe's other side, looking over her shoulder as well.

Suddenly, with both men sitting behind her on her bed, looking over her shoulders, Chloe found it hard to breathe, much less _speak_.

"That's the interesting part." Dean announced, eyes on the screen. "Rockford, Illinois."

"Okay…" Sam frowned. "And that's interesting _how_?"

"Dad has a section in his journal on Rockford." Dean explained, getting up and going to pick up the discarded journal, browsing through the pages. "I remember seeing it a couple of times while I was trying to read his doctor-like handwriting and figure out if he'd left a clue of where he was in it. If I remember right, the article was something about an asylum."

Sam turned to Chloe. "Can you check it out?"

She closed her eyes for a second as his breath caressed her neck. _Damn it! Will you two just STOP it with the unintended seduction already?_ "Sure." Opening her eyes she quickly began her work and in minutes had what they were looking for. "Bingo."

"What'd you find?" Dean asked, looking up from the journal.

"I checked the local Rockford paper and ran a search for anything that had to do with an asylum that'd happened in the last couple of days." She announced, waiting for Dean to return to his space to her right before continuing now that he could see the screen. "This cop, Walter Kelly, comes home from his shift, shoots his wife, puts the gun to his mouth and blows his brains out."

Dean made a face.

Sam frowned as he took over and read the next section. "Earlier that night Kelly and his partner responded to a call at the _Roosevelt Asylum_."

"See?" Dean grinned. "I _knew_ there was a loony bin involved!" He continued flipping through the pages of the journal until he came to a newspaper cutout. "Here you go. Yeah, _Roosevelt Asylum_. Seven unconfirmed sightings, two deaths-at least up till last week-" he looked up at them. "I think that this is where dad wants us to go."

Sam frowned darker. "It's a _job_." He got up from the bed and ran his hands through his hair. "Dad wants us to work a _job_."

There was an icon blinking showing that Lois had messaged her something, but Chloe ignored it, this was _way_ more important.

"Maybe we'll meet up with him." Dean closed the journal. "Maybe he's there."

"Maybe he's not." Sam countered. "He could be sending us there to hunt this thing by ourselves."

"Who cares?" Dean asked. "He wants us there, that's good enough for me."

Chloe closed her eyes and groaned. The boys mightn't want her sleeping in another room, but they felt no guilt in leaving her in the motel room all day or night while hunting. They just made sure that the room was salted and ordered her not to leave.

She'd been taking months of that crap, and thanks to it she was now full versed in Passions and other daytime soap operas that she usually would never watch.

Sure, she'd also used the time to communicate with Oliver and the rest of the Justice League, secretly working as Watchtower for them despite the fact that she was so far away-but the JL had had to lay low recently due to the fact that Lex was apparently beginning to suspect Oliver was the Green Arrow-so Chloe was left jobless and lonely.

_Then again, maybe I can have Clark come and visit me while Dean and Sam are gone_.

That would be nice. She hadn't had a face-to-face conversation with Clark since this had all begun, and she was beginning to get the idea that he was quite resentful towards the Winchesters for taking up her time.

_I miss that big dumb alien_.

"Doesn't this strike you as odd?" Sam asked Dean, both standing and circling each other. "The texting? The coordinates?"

"_Sam_!" Dean interrupted. "Dad's telling us to go somewhere and we're _going_." With that he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Sam was left standing in the middle of the room, looking at the closed door.

_Army Brat says: HELLLO? Chlo? Are you still there?_

_C.S. says: Yeah. I have to go. Ttyl. Bye!_

Logging off, Chloe closed the lid of the laptop and sighed, putting it on the bedside table separating the two beds. She looked at Sam, who hadn't moved from where he'd been standing when Dean stormed off, probably to go to the bar some blocks away.

"He's worried too, Sam."

The tall brunette turned to look at her. "I know."

She smiled at the guy who suddenly looked like a lost puppy, patting the piece of bed next to her. "Why don't we see what we can pick up on this TV, huh? Dean'll probably spend the night out again with whomever he picks up at the bar, so we don't have to worry about him coming in at the best part and bitching about us watching some 'girly' movie or something."

" 'Girly' as in someone doesn't die in a gory-way every two minutes." Sam grinned, taking off his shoes and hesitating only a second before sitting next to her on the bed.

Turning on the television and turning off the lights, they pulled her sheets up over them as they tried to find something relatively decent to watch—which was hard given their choices. In the end they decided to watch a slasher flick that had a pretty but extremely dumb blonde with 'plastic' breasts (as Sam called them) as the leading lady.

Chloe and Sam spent the whole movie criticizing the characters choices in hiding places, criticizing the killer for being somewhat _senseless, _criticizing the writer for having come up with such crap, and finally, criticizing Hollywood for making it possible for this movie to disgrace television sets everywhere.

"I'm sorry for making you watch that." Chloe laughed as the closing credits rolled by. She turned to Sam and paused when she found him sleeping, obviously having been _so bored_ and _so tired_ that he'd drifted to sleep during the ending of the movie.

And Chloe didn't have the heart to wake him up. He and Dean had been so stressed the last couple of days, and with the nightmares that Sam was always having about Jess' death—the nightmares he refused to talk about—well, Sam needed all of the rest he could get.

_And if he has a nightmare, I'll wake up and wake him up_.

Deciding that that was sound logic, Chloe turned off the television and got more comfortable in the bed, pulling the sheets up better around them and closing her eyes.

_Good night Sam_.

And with that she drifted off into sleep.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The first thing that Sam Winchester realized the moment he woke up the next morning was that it was the first night that he'd been able to sleep without seeing Jess' body pinned the ceiling right before she was burnt alive, whispering his name.

The second thing he realized was that he wasn't alone in the bed, and there was a petite body laying halfway _on top_ of his, smelling of shampoo and wrapped around him as if he were a teddy bear.

The third thing he realized was that the person, the very _feminine_ person whose curved body was pressed so intimately against his, was Chloe.

And the fourth thing, the fourth thing that he noticed was Dean, sitting on the other bed, face somber, body tense, using Chloe's computer to read something.

"Bout _time_ you got up, Sleeping Beauty." Dean looked up and smiled at Sam, and yet there was something off with his expression. "If I'd known that you and gorgeous were so _close_ I would have given you two more time alone."

"What? _No_." Sam blushed, speaking softly as he untangled himself from the sleeping woman's grip, getting out of bed, fully clothed. "We watched a movie when you went out."

"Girl on girl or the regular vanilla you watch?" Dean quipped, returning his eyes to the laptop. "Because, let me tell you, little brother, Chloe Sullivan doesn't seem like a woman who'd be satisfied with _missionary_ the rest of her life."

"Stop being such an _asshole_, Dean." Sam was embarrassed and defensive, and didn't know _why_. "We watched a _really_ bad slasher movie and must have fallen asleep. That's _all_."

"Whatever." Dean kept his gaze on whatever he was reading. "Look, get bathed and get us some breakfast, alright? As soon as Chloe's awake we're heading to Rockford to interrogate officer Kelly's partner and try to figure out why _he_ didn't go bananas."

"Yeah, okay." Sam nodded, heading to the bathroom, wondering what was wrong with his brother.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Okay. Done that chapter. Am off to write the next one!**

**How about you all be lovely readers and give me a review?**

**Please?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural…come on now, you guys really didn't think I did-did you?**

_Hey guys! I've been keeping the chapters coming faithfully, right? My reward? YOUR REVIEWS! Thanks for your nice words of encouragement-and it made me laugh that a lot of people were asking for what is going to happen in this chapter. It amuses me because this chapter was already half written by the time you, my reviewers, asked for this to happen! Like, um, psychics much? laughs_

_There will be CHLARK FRIENDSHIP in this fic…no romance…though I WILL bring someone from Chloe's past as a, um, slight competition factor for the Winchesters. It just won't be our average alien farm boy._

_Enjoy this chapter!_

* * *

They'd arrived in Rockford the night before, and after finding out where the local cops liked to go have a drink after work, the three of them had gone out for a nightcap, and also to work the partner of Walter Kelly-Officer Gunnison. Dean had played a pushy reporter, and Sam had played the part of the 'concerned citizen' who kicked Dean out of the bar for being 'an insensitive jerk' and trying to force information out of the officer for his 'article'.

The farce had worked, and the officer had spilled to Sam over a couple of beers that Walter Kelly had been a good cop. He'd been the head of his class—had had a bright future ahead of him. And also, while he'd fought with his wife once or twice as did most couples, they were noted for being extremely in love and had even been talking about having children before Walter came home from the asylum and killed her and himself.

Officer Gunnison had also told a lot about the asylum…it had so many legends that the place was almost a dead ringer for being haunted. There was no way all those stories could have been just invented.

So after leaving the bar, the three parted ways. The boys had left Chloe in the—of course—salted room (which only had one bed since it was the only room available), and headed off to check out of the asylum for themselves. The blonde had gotten some hours sleep since it was around dawn by the time that they'd found a motel with a vacant room, and when she'd awoken it was early in the morning.

Bored, and so not interested to see Teresa and Ethan with their whole drama on Passions, Chloe had done the only sane thing she could have done.

She called Clark.

Interestingly enough, salt circles did not keep Intergalactic Travelers out.

They sat on her bed and ate the food he'd brought with him, smiling and enjoying each other's company. Chloe told Clark about all the things they'd-well, the brothers-had hunted after she'd joined them, and Clark told her about all that was going on back in Smallville. He told her how Oliver had made him dress up as the Green Arrow during a function that Oliver and Lex were both attending to throw Lex off of Oliver's trail, and how Lex was just getting darker and darker.

That saddened Chloe, because she'd known Lex well once. Sure, they hadn't been friends, but they'd been partners, and during the time that he'd hidden her Chloe admitted that she'd had a crush on her 'savior', but of course Lex never saw her other than a way to put his father behind bars for good.

Not many men saw Chloe like a woman.

Truly, she didn't know of one.

For Pete and Clark she was the best friend that they would give their lives for-but never noticed she had breasts.

For Lex she'd been the only one who would verbal judo him-and also the key to locking his dad up.

For her dad she was a darling asexual daughter who should still like pink and whom he still gave teddy bears to as gifts every other Christmas.

And for Oliver she was Watchtower. She was his Sidekick and the only one he trusted to help him on many missions.

So, unless one counted Bart's many flirtations-and really, who could take Bart's comments seriously?-there was not one guy in her life who saw her as a woman.

_Not even Sam or Dean_, she bemoaned. _They just see me as the one they have to protect—and also Research Girl.  
_

_Stop thinking like that!_

"You know, the one I haven't heard from is Lana." Chloe announced as she finished off the homestyle-cooked chicken, licking her fingers before reaching for the baked potato. This had got to be the best meal she'd had in months and she felt a little guilty for eating good while the boys were going to be stuck with diner food—but only a little.

"Well, she transferred out of Met U a week after you left." Clark sighed, looking heart broken. "I don't know where she went. She came to say goodbye before she left though—said that we needed to be apart for her to get on with her life."

"I'm sorry Clark." Chloe whispered, truly sorry for her best friend. She knew that he'd loved Lana for most of his life, and this must hurt him horribly. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

Clark smiled sadly. "You've had more important things to occupy your time than listen to the next chapter of the Clark/Lana saga."

"Nothing's ever going to be more important than my best friend." Chloe assured him, feeling horrible that he'd felt that way.

"I miss you, Chloe." Clark admitted freely as he looked around the motel room in distaste. "And I don't like the living conditions these guys have you in. Why don't you just return to the farm with me? I'll-I'll keep the place, uh, salted, and I'll keep you safe."

She smiled at him, swallowing a bite of Martha's famous baked potato. "Clark, you know that I'm not going to leave. Every time we talk, you tell me the same thing, but I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be."

"Where? Cooped up in some dingy little motel room all day?" Clark frowned. "Chloe, you're made for better things than this. You're supposed to be working at the Daily Planet right now. That has always been your dream-remember?"

"Of course I remember." She scoffed, sighing as she thought about the Daily Planet and the smell of newspapers fresh off of the printing press. "I can't explain it, but during these last couple of months I've felt more at home in the back of that Chevy Impala than I did behind the desk at the Daily Planet."

Clark looked at her oddly. "Who are you and what have you done with my best friend Chloe Sullivan?"

She laughed, putting down the remains of her delicious potato and throwing her arms around him, hugging Clark tightly. "I missed you so much, farm boy."

He sighed and hugged her back. "I miss you too, city girl." In a move that surprised her, Clark pulled her into his lap and continued to hug her. "Did you know that Oliver's been reading up on the occult just to get an idea of what his Watchtower is going through right now?"

Chloe giggled as she leaned her cheek against Clark's chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, glad that they could return to their platonic, loving relationship without any unwanted attraction on either side. "You're lying."

"No, I'm not. Bart says that he even caught Oliver with a book on psychic-development in one hand and a crystal in the other."

Chloe burst out laughing as she imagined that. "My poor Arrow!"

"He's been complaining about you not visiting." Clark was amused and at ease, clearing also enjoying how they'd gotten back to the sibling closeness that they'd had for years. "So I wouldn't be surprised if he drops in on you on of these days." He paused. "Do the Winchesters know about Oliver?"

"They don't know about anyone from the League. They probably don't even know that the League exists." Chloe was quick to reassure him. "I just think that these two aspects of my life should remain as separate as possible. So tell Ollie that while I appreciate his wanting to take care of me, it would be probably best if he stayed right there."

"I'll let him know." Clark nodded.

"Thanks." Chloe grinned, tilting her head back to look at him.

And that was how Dean and Sam Winchester found them as they entered the motel room, arguing.

In seconds the brothers had pulled out some sort of weapon, aiming it at Clark.

"Look, I don't know how you got in here asshole." Dean growled, sawed off pointed at Clark's head. "But if you don't get away from her I swear I'll-."

"You'll what? Shoot me?" Clark frowned at the brothers before turning to Chloe. "And these are the guys that you're traveling with? Chloe? Do you really think it's safe?"

"Chloe?" Sam asked, unsure, frowning at Clark. "You know this guy?"

"Guys, put the weapons down!" She did not need them shooting at Clark and realizing that their bullets did absolutely nothing. "This is Clark Kent, my best friend since high school!"

"And what?" Dean asked, not lowering his gun. "He decided he coincidentally would go on a road trip from Kansas to Illinois and accidentally found you here?"

"And what if I did?" Clark wanted to know.

"Dean!" Chloe hissed, getting up from Clark's lap. "I invited him over! We were talking this morning on the phone after you and Sam left and I realized he was in the next city doing some work for his mother, Senator Kent. So I asked him to come over since I hadn't been able to see him in months."

Sam lowered his gun, but still didn't seem too trusting.

Dean had yet to lower his sawed off.

"_Dean_!" Chloe was rapidly losing her patience. "He crossed over the salt, okay? Now put the gun down!"

Looking around him to make sure that there wasn't a break in the ring of salt around the motel room, Dean finally put down his gun, although he did so rather reluctantly. "I still don't like the coincidence of him being here in Illinois around the same time we were."

"Dude, just, chill." Sam announced before turning to Clark. "Has Chloe told you what we do?"

Clark nodded.

"Good." Sam declared. "So you'll understand why we're a bit, uh, suspicious."

"Yeah, but you're not suspicious enough." Clark folded his arms over his muscular and sculpted chest. "What kind of protectors are you if you leave Chloe so vulnerable like this?"

"Clark!" Chloe's eyes widened in horror, he wasn't going to go mega-protective older-brother about her again, was he?

Dean glared at the other man and opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by his brother.

"Excuse me?" Sam bit out, the tolerance and patience he'd shown Clark since he'd realized he was a friend of Chloe's vanishing immediately. "Who do you think you are, honestly? We've been taking care of Chloe for the last couple of months and-!"

"And I have been taking care of her most of her life!" Clark defended, voice deep and pissed, obviously this was bothering him more than he'd let known previously. "And while, yes, she tends to attract attackers of the unusual variety, I've had to protect and save her from evil people who were just that—people."

Sam frowned, mouth closed.

A muscle jumped in Dean's cheek.

"People," Clark pointed around him at the ring of salt. "That that won't keep out-people who prey on others because of their own evil and not because of any supernatural influences. God, you guys are so full of it, thinking that you're the big experienced hunters and yet you've left Chloe alone and vulnerable all the time!"

"Watch your tongue buddy." Dean took a menacing step forwards. "We mightn't know Chloe as long as you did, and sure, we made a mistake thinking that the only evil out there came from Hell, but don't insinuate that we don't care about her or that her safety isn't a very important issue for us!"

"Clark," Chloe placed a hand on his shoulder and he turned to her, all confrontation gone.

"Yeah Chlo?"

"You're an adorable idiot, you know that right?" She smiled at him before engulfing him in a tight hug, burying her face in his shirt and breathing in the scent of pure Kansas countryside as he hugged her back, resting his face in the crook of her neck.

"I'm just trying to protect you, Chlo." Clark said softly. "I've come so close to losing you in the past, and you've been under my care. I—I don't trust these guys and I don't trust them to take proper care of you."

"You make me sound like a pet." Chloe laughed, pulling away slightly and grinning into his handsome face. "I'm going to be fine, Clark. Sam and Dean have been taking good care of me these last months…"

"Come back to Kansas." He pleaded again. "I'll protect you."

"Whoa, wait just one minute!" Dean interrupted taking another step towards them. "Chloe isn't going anywhere! She stays here with us! We're her protectors now, and believe me, when that thing that's after her finds her in your little farm, you're not gonna be able to stop him from taking her." He made a face, looking Clark over. "Kansas home-cooking can only do so much."

"You'd be surprised." Clark glared at Dean. "I've protected Chloe from the unusual before, and I can do so again."

"Yeah, you might have handled the unusual before," Sam spoke up, eyes harder and darker than Chloe had ever seen them. "But you've never handled the supernatural before—we have, and I refuse to lose someone else I care for to this bastard just because you have a savior's complex, you got that?"

Dean turned and looked at his brother in surprise.

Chloe did too. Sam never mentioned the Jess-incident, not even vaguely.

Clark narrowed his eyes at Sam opening his mouth to say something obviously cutting.

But Sam spoke first. "Look, you were right, Dean and I were wrong to take for granted that the only danger Chloe would be in would be from the supernatural—I thank you for pointing out just how wrong we were—but don't for _one second _that you can just come here and take her away. Chloe's a part of this team, and our main priority is her safety." He paused for a moment, a muscle jumping in his cheek. "I know she says that you're her best friend, and I know how hard it is to let go of someone you've loved and protected for so long, but sometimes you just have to."

Chloe and Dean shared a look between them, wondering how much of what Sam was saying to Clark was about Chloe, and how much it was about Jess.

No matter how much it was of either, this was remarkable progress in his recovery from that traumatic experience.

Clark frowned, blue eyes locked with Sam's dark blue/green ones, and he seemed to be trying to figure the taller brother out. In the end he blinked in surprise and looked at Dean as well, before shaking his head and looking back at Chloe. "You know, Oliver was hoping that I'd convince you to come back."

She grinned softly at Clark, knowing that this was his way of backing down gracefully. "Tell him he can live without me for a little longer."

The brothers exchanged confused frowns.

"Bart might show up to check on you." Clark warned. "And I wouldn't be surprised if AC or Victor do as well. They'll probably be 'in the area' and want to make sure that these two are taking care of you."

Chloe's smile brightened at the thought of 'her boys', who had really taken to her like a mother figure, and had proven to be possessive of her in the past. "Tell those boys that they're gonna have to learn to share and play nice." She paused. "I need them to stay away for right now, I don't want them getting hurt."

"Funny, AC said the same thing about not wanting _you_ to get hurt." Clark told her. "Then again, he _is_ your ex boyfriend."

Chloe wondered why Clark was letting out all of this information. _Yes_, AC and her had gotten together for a brief while when he'd first appeared in Smallville. He'd saved her from drowning, and along with Clark she'd saved him from Lex. The blonde had had to leave and they'd remained as friends, even when _Aquaman_ returned with Oliver as part of the League. They'd decided that they weren't meant to be more than close friends.

_So why is Clark-?_

And that was when she saw the look her best friend was giving her protectors. It was a very brotherly _back-off_ aimed at what he inaccurately thought were two contenders for his '_little sister_'.

Chloe narrowed her eyes at Clark.

_They are not interested in me! So stop humiliating me like this!_

Chloe knew that if the boys realized the _real_ reason Clark was being hostile with them Dean would burst out laughing saying how she _so_ wasn't his type, and Sam was assure Clark that he was still very much in love with and in mourning over his dead girlfriend.

_Can this get any more ego-deflating_?

"Wait a second. Why are all of your stuff in this one room? With only one bed?" Clark frowned, suddenly realizing this little point, eyes going wide open. "Are you three-?"

"_CLARK_!" Chloe went red in horror. He had _not_ just said that!

"And what if we _were_?" Dean wanted to know. "Chloe's a gorgeous woman, and I usually don't share my women but I definitely make an exception for my brother."

"_DEAN_!" Sam looked just as red-faced as Chloe.

Chloe collapsed on the one bed, horrified, embarrassed, and promising herself that Dean and Clark were _soooooo_ going to pay for this humiliation.

"Dude, look," Sam turned to Clark. "We are _not_, uh, with Chloe."

"But if we _were_, it wouldn't be any of your business." Dean seemed quite antagonistic with Clark.

Chloe glared at Dean.

"He's crude," Sam announced. "But right."

Chloe glared at _Sam_. What was he saying? Hadn't he been on _her_ side?

"Chloe, walk me to the door." Clark growled as he stormed out of the room.

"You two are _so_ dead." Chloe hissed at the boys before following her best friend out.

* * *

"Are they _still_ talking?" Dean wanted to know from where he was sitting at the small table in the room, eyes on his father's journal entries, a muscle jumping in his cheek violently.

Sam pulled across the curtain and looked down at Chloe and Clark in the parking lot below, who seemed to be having an animated argument, hands flying here and there, faces red, mouths moving a mile a minute. "Yeah."

"What the hell could they be talking about that takes this long?" Dean asked as he snapped the journal shut and leaned forwards in his seat. "They've been down there for half an hour already-and who _knows_ how long he was up in here-with FOOD!-talking and feeling her up like that while we were out?"

Sam let the curtain slide through his fingers and turned his back on the window, leaning against the wall next to it. "You think we were maybe a _little_ too, uh, I don't know?-_defensive_ with him?"

"Of course not. She was on his _friggin lap_!" Dean growled. "He had his arms all over her!" He turned to the bed and sneered. "I'm calling room service to change those sheets. Who knows what happened while we were out."

Sam frowned, turning to look out of the window again before stopping himself and leaning back against the wall again. "And what if something _did_ happen while we were gone?"

Dean headed towards the phone attached to the bedside table immediately, mumbling darkly.

"Dean—_Dean_!" Sam was irritated and he didn't really understand _why_. "Even if they _did_ do something on that bed or whatever-it's Chloe's business, right? I mean, she's a big girl, and it's not any different than you when you go home with those blondes you like to pick up."

"That is the single most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Dean announced sorely as he dialed the reception. "It's a good thing that I got you to leave law school, because with reasoning like _that_ you'd _never_ win a case."

Sam glared at his brother. "Dean! What I'm trying to say is that it shouldn't bother us that Chloe has someone!"

"I don't _like_ him, Sammy!" Dean hung up the phone in agitation. "Didn't you feel something _off_ about him? He don't feel _human_ to me, and I don't like anything _inhuman_ near Chloe—_especially_ with the fact that we know that something _inhuman_ is after her."

Sam paused, relieved to finally have a _reason_ for the dislike he'd felt almost instantaneously for Chloe's 'best friend'. "Well, I _did_ feel something off, but I thought I must have been mistaken since he crossed over the salt."

"Maybe he's something we haven't come across before-maybe _dad_ hasn't even come across before-that doesn't have problems with salt." Dean sat down on the bed, and then suddenly remembered his suspicions and jumped off of it with a sneer. "I don't like the coincidences, Sam. He was _coincidentally_ in the area when Chloe calls him and he comes over with _home-cooked food_? No. That sounds like premeditated to me."

"True." Sam nodded rapidly. "And he _was_ really anxious to take Chloe away from us. I mean, take her back with him."

"Exactly." Dean went back to the little table and sat down, tapping his fingers against the wood as he spoke. "And what's with the mentioning of these other guys and then the look he gave us?"

"The 'back-off' one?" Sam asked, going to sit next to his brother, leaning forwards on the table as they continued to build their theory concerning this _Clark_ guy.

"_Exactly_!"

"But what can we do about it?" Sam wanted to know. "Chloe and this Clark seemed to be close—_really close_—I don't think she's gonna be happy with us interfering in their relationship, and I don't think she's gonna buy the whole 'Clark Kent mightn't be human' thingy."

"What about the possibility that he might be human and possessed by a _really_ high-leveled demon?" Dean pressed.

Sam sighed, leaning back in his chair. "_Or_, he's an All-American boy who was in the right place at the right time and came over to see his best friend that he hasn't seen in months and we're just blowing things out of proportion."

Dean snorted. "You're forgetting the home-cooked meal. It _completely_ blows the theory, lawyer-boy. Clark _knew_ he was coming here, _knew_ he was going to see Chloe, and _that is not coincidental_."

Sam frowned. "You make a strong case."

"'Course I do." Dean suddenly grinned. "I betcha that if I'd gone to that fancy law school with you I'd have _totally_ kicked your ass in court."

Sam rolled his eyes in annoyance and amusement. "Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean grinned brighter.

Suddenly Sam frowned, folding his arms over his chest. "Look, like it or not, Clark made a point. Chloe isn't safe here by herself. The salt doesn't protect her from evil people. We're gonna have to start taking her on our hunts with us."

"Now I _know_ you're insane." Dean snorted in wry amusement. "There's no _way_ that I'm letting gorgeous go on our hunts with us. She could get hurt, or worse, killed."

"Then we teach her." Sam responded, completely serious. "We train her like dad did us, and if you think about it, it's the best way to protect her—teach her to protect herself."

Dean frowned, realizing that there was a big grain of truth in that statement. "I don't know, Sammy. What if she gets hurt?"

"I'm not ever going to let anything hurt Chloe." Sam replied with a determined frown. "And I doubt you will either."

"Damn straight." Dean agreed. "The girl's got a mouth a large as California and a temper like a poltergeist. She's a smartass and can _never_ let anyone else have the last word in an argument. She's annoying as _hell _and because of her I have to sleep on the cold, hard floor every other night." He then grinned. "I'd be completely _bored_ if she wasn't around anymore."

Sam grinned and shook his head at his brother. "So we take her with us tonight to the asylum?"

Dean winced at the thought. "Yeah, we take her with us tonight."

The brothers nodded at each other, decision made, before the silence weighed on them once more. They cleared their throats, Sam looking down at Chloe's laptop and Dean drumming his fingers on the table, both clearing their throats every couple of minutes.

"She still talking to him?" Dean finally asked when the silence had stretched uncomfortably.

"Lemme check." Sam rushed to his feet, heading towards the window and pulling away the curtain again, looking down in time to see Chloe hugging Clark goodbye. "It looks like they're saying their goodbyes."

"_Finally_." Dean snorted, grabbing his father's journal once more and relaxing in his seat, browsing through the pages leisurely.

Sam watched as Chloe turned her back on Clark and began walking towards the outside staircase that would lead her to the room. For reasons that he couldn't understand, Sam kept his eye on Clark, who was looking around him suspiciously.

And then, Clark was gone. He'd _vanished in the blink of an eye_.

Sam's eyes widened as he stumbled back away from the window and the curtain dropped back into place. "Dean?"

"Hmm?" The sandy-blonde asked, eyes still on the journal.

"We have a problem."

* * *

Hey everyone! Here's the next chappy! Hope you all liked the Winchester boys and their reaction to ProtectiveOlderBrother!Clark.

**Review?**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Here you go people, the next chapter in the series and the continuation of the asylum episode!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"Okay, you two are in _serious_ trouble!" Chloe stormed back into the room, glaring at the two men who were looking at her oddly. "What was that all about?"

"What was _what_ all about?" Dean asked, exchanging odd looks with Sam.

Chloe narrowed her eyes, looking from one brother to the other. They'd been annoyed and furious while Clark had been here, and the fact that they were now both passive and sharing those looks meant that they were keeping from her, something they either didn't know how to tell her or were too nervous of how she'd react.

"What is it?" She asked, placing her hands on her hips. "What _is_ it?"

The brothers shared another look before Sam cleared his throat. "How much do you know about your friend Clark?"

Chloe raised an eyebrow at the question. They were protecting her from her protector? "I know everything about Clark Kent. We've been best friends since we were thirteen."

Dean made a noise before thumbing the side of his nose. "Has he ever, oh, I don't know, done anything _unusual_ during all that time?"

Chloe's face remained unchanged, and yet inside she was frozen in fear. Had they-had they somehow figured out something about Clark? That he wasn't human? That—had they seen him do something?

The blonde was ever fearful of Clark's protection, and she didn't exactly know how the brothers would react to the fact that her best friend was an alien. For them if it wasn't human it was evil and thus huntable, and she would never place Clark in that danger.

Plus, it was Clark secret to tell not hers.

"Well," Chloe pretended to think about it. "There _was_ that time I caught him and Pete in only boxers together and never really got a good explanation as to _why_ they were half naked in the barn." She then grinned saucily, trying to distract them from Clark and knowing just how to do it—at least for Dean. "Then again we _were_ teenagers at the time, and it's not like _I_ didn't do some experimenting as well."

Sam choked on his saliva.

Dean's face suddenly lit up. "Oh gorgeous, with every day that passes I like you more and more."

Chloe smiled naughtily, glad to encourage this conversation and lead it away from Clark-even if inside she was dying of embarrassment. "Well, I always liked kissable lips and silky hair long enough to sink my hands into." She let her green eyes shift from brother to brother. "Probably why you two and I get along so well."

Sam cleared his throat, looking away rapidly but not before Chloe saw the beginnings of a blush.

Dean shifted suspiciously, placing his father's journal on his lap in a move that surprised the woman senseless.

She'd been half-serious with her comment, and the fact that she'd managed to affect them both did a helluva job for her self-esteem.

The blonde grinned at them, deciding to take compassion upon the boys and change the subject. "So, fellas, what did you two do today?"

Dean continued to shift in his seat.

Sam cleared his throat once more, ran his fingers through his hair, and turned back to her. "Well, after dropping you off Dean and I went to check out the asylum."

She nodded for him to continue.

"Dad's journal said that in 1972 a couple of kids broke into the South Wing and only one survived." Sam continued. "The way he told it was that one of his friends went mad and starting killing the others."

"So whatever's going on," Dean finally spoke up. "The South Wing is in the heart of it."

Chloe frowned. "But if kids are always breaking into the asylum why haven't there been more deaths?"

Sam suddenly grinned. "I wondered the same thing, until I realized that the doors to the South Wing were usually chained. It'd probably been chained up for years, but we found them freshly cut."

"So they chained up the South Wing to keep people out." Chloe went to the bed and collapsed on in.

"Or to keep something in." Dean countered.

She looked up at that. "That's a spooky thought."

Sam chuckled.

"So you guys went and checked out the South Wing?" Chloe asked, turning around so that she was lying on her belly looking at them.

"Course." Dean snorted as if it was a silly question. "We got nothing on the EMF, but that didn't mean that nothing was there, some spirits can only appear at certain hours."

"Yeah, I heard about that." Chloe nodded, intrigued as always when she listened to the boys talking about hunts.

"And despite all of his 'Haley Joel' vibe thingies, Sam sensed nothing." Dean picked up his father's journal and looked through it again before pausing and putting it down, turning to look at Chloe in interest. "Hey gorgeous? Who do you think's the hotter psychic? Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Love Hewitt or Sam?"

Sam looked around him as if searching for something to throw at his brother.

"Oh, it's a definite tie between Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sam." Chloe followed along with the game. "She's got the gorgeous face and Sam's got that lean, muscular body that would drive any woman insane."

Sam froze in his search for something to hit his brother with, face red, eyes wide.

Dean cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat. "Yeah, well, it runs in the family gorgeous."

She grinned naughtier, wondering what had gotten into her that evening. "Oh, I _know_, I've seen you _both_ with only towels on, so _believe_ me, I _know_."

There was a tense silence in the room as no one knew exactly what to say to that.

Amused by their sudden _shyness_, Chloe once more took compassion on them. "So you guys entered the South Wing and what? What happened?"

"Well, uh," Sam scratched the back of his head, face still flushed. "We found where the patients used to be treated."

"I read up about that on the internet last night." Chloe interrupted, making a face. "They did horrible things to those poor people like intense electroshock therapies and lobotomies." She paused. "So what do you guys think you're up against? Ghosts possessing peoples?"

"That's what we thought at first." Dean granted, leaning forwards in the seat. "But then we decided that it seemed more like Amityville or the Smurl haunting."

"Spirits driving people insane." Sam explained.

"We also found out the name of the doctor who used to work there at the asylum, a Dr. Sanford Ellicott." Dean continued as if Sam hadn't ever spoken. "And guess what his descendant is? A _shrink_." He chuckled at what he obviously felt was amusing. "So to get some more information on the asylum and figure out if anything happened in the South Wing Sammy got a last-minute appointment with the good doc."

"Why didn't _you_ go see the shrink?" Chloe wanted to know.

Dean made a face as if the answer should be obvious.

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed. "Dr. Elicott actually had a lot of information on what happened in the South Wing."

"Well, he _should_." Dean mumbled. "You were in there for _hours_. I can't _believe_ it took you _that long_ to talk to the guy about the prison."

The guilty look that flashed through Sam's eyes amused Chloe because obviously the prison hadn't been the only thing Sam had talked about. He'd probably talked about the stress he'd been having with Dean lately. Of course, the brunet brother would have glossed over a couple of important issues during his talk with the doc, but Chloe was glad that the guy had gotten everything off his chest.

"Well," Sam made a weird sound in the back of his throat, not looking in Dean's direction. "I found out that the South Wing was where they housed the _real_ hard cases like the psychotics and the criminally insane."

"And one night in '64 they rioted." Dean cut in. "They attacked the staff, attacked _each other_—they basically took over the asylum. Some patients and staff were killed, and according to Sammy it was real gory, some of the bodies were never even recovered—_including_ the chief of staff, Dr. Ellicott."

Chloe made a face. "What do you _mean_ never recovered?"

"Oh, this is the best part." Dean murmured with sarcasm. "The cops searched every inch of the place but the patients must have stuffed the bodies somewhere hidden."

"Oh god, I'm gonna be sick." She whispered, sitting up in the bed and hugging a pillow to her stomach.

"Well, the only thing good that came out of everything is that they transferred all the surviving patients out of there and shut down the hospital." Sam announced.

"So to sum everything up," Dean spoke. "We got a bunch of violent deaths and a bunch of unrecovered bodies."

"A bunch of angry _spirits_." Sam corrected.

"Good times." Dean got up. "So tonight we're gonna check out the asylum."

"Okay." Chloe nodded, used to them going out on their hunts and leaving her in the motel room.

The brothers exchanged glances before Sam finally spoke. "We are going to check the asylum tonight—we—as in the _three_ of us."

The blonde's eyes widened in shock. "You want _me_ to come along with you two on a _hunt_?" She got up from bed and narrowed her eyes at them. "Okay, who are you two and what have you done to Sam and Dean? Are you possessed? _Christo_!"

All that got her were amused looks from the brothers.

"I—I don't get it." Chloe collapsed back on her bed. "You guys have never wanted to go with you on a hunt before. What changed?"

Dean frowned. "Well, your _friend_ made a good point today when he said that you're not safe when we leave you behind to hunt. So Sammy and I have decided that we're going to teach you."

"To _hunt_?" She whispered, eyes wide. "_Really_?"

Sam nodded. "You ready for a quick lesson before we go in tonight?"

Chloe suddenly grinned brightly. "Of course!"

After going over her first lesson, Chloe was certain of a couple of facts. One was that there were bodies to be found in that asylum that were in desperate need of salting and burning-that that was the only way to 'kill'—or at least stop—a ghost.

She also realized _why_ her job was to use the _video camera_ while the brothers did the true hunting—to pick up on whether there was any orb activity.

'Orbs' were energy anomalies recorded at some haunted sights and were only visible through infrared monitors. Orbs could be recorded on photographic film but were not visible to the naked eye. When they appeared, they showed up in round or sometimes rectangular shapes.

Also, some spirits that were invisible to the naked eye were visible through the lens of a camera…something Chloe couldn't help but find extremely creepy.

_Very extremely INCREDIBLY creepy._

She'd already known about why the brothers used rocksalt guns when hunting. It was a defense against ghosts and other supernatural spirits because while the fired salt alone wouldn't destroy a spirit it acted like a deterrent, forcing the spirit to dissipate briefly and thus hopefully giving them the time they needed to find, salt and burn the remains.

So with the basic information, Chloe found herself holding the video camera and entering the South Wing with the brothers under the cloak of darkness.

Sam had a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

Dean turned on his EMF reader and they watched as it silently lit up, signaling the presence of spirit life.

The three of them shared glances.

"Now remember gorgeous," Dean announced as they continued making their way into the South Wing. "Stay right by Sam and I, don't ever get separated, and the moment you see something you tell us."

"Sure, no problem." She nodded, eyes on the screen of the video camera.

"How are the EMF readings?" Sam asked Dean a couple of minutes later.

"Loud and proud."

"Guys?" Chloe spoke from where she stood between them. "This place is orbing like _crazy_."

The brothers stopped and looked over her shoulder at the screen, noticing the multiple, distinct orbs all around them.

"Probably multiple spirits out and about." Dean decided, looking back down at his fully-lit EMF reader.

"And if any of these belong to those unrecovered _bodies_ and are causing the haunting…" Sam let the sentence drop.

And Dean picked it right back up. "We got to find those bodies and burn them." He frowned, sending a look in Chloe's direction. "We got to be careful though. If there's something that makes me more nervous than a pissed off spirit it's the pissed off spirit of a psycho killer."

Chloe gulped.

Sam smiled down at her in understanding. "You're gonna be fine."

"Course she is." Dean announced. "Not gonna let anything happen to gorgeous—she hasn't given me any details about this _experimenting_ she was talking about earlier."

"Pervert." Chloe slapped Dean shoulder, causing him to chuckle and Sam to roll his eyes.

And yet it'd worked as planned and Chloe calmed down, following the brothers silently as she continued to look through the camera screen.

They continued walking, the boy a step or so ahead of her, until Chloe felt an unnatural chill run down her spine and she turned, looking back behind where they'd come from. The chill was gone, and there was nothing there, and yet Chloe was _sure_ she'd felt something.

"Chlo?" Sam called as he and Dean stopped walking. "Did you see something?"

Had she? "N-no." She shook her head and hurried to catch up with them. "I thought I felt something cold, but when I turned there was nothing there."

"Cold spots indicate spirit activity." Dean explained. "It's normal."

She nodded, feeling silly, continuing the rest of the patrol in silence until they found their way to the room where the patients used to get 'treated'.

The blonde forced the bile back down her throat as she was assailed by a sick sensation from the room. She felt slight pain, fear, could have _sworn_ she heard screaming and pleas for someone to stop, for mercy, but the glances she gave the brothers—who'd spread out to check the room better—proved that they hadn't heard a thing.

_It's just your nerves and your overactive imagination playing tricks on you_. She chided herself, continuing to slowly film the room in different sections, seeing orbs but not much else. All had gone quite. _See? All in the mind. Nothing but orbs here_.

The camera lens continued to pick up the orbs, and Dean's butt as he bent down to check something on the ground.

The blonde grinned cheekily as she continued to film his _fine_ posterior. _Can't blame a girl for taking an opportunity given her_.

Sensing a sudden chill again, Chloe froze. _It's all in your imagination, and even if it isn't-it's normal!_ That cold grew chillier, and she finally turned in the direction, screaming as she saw an old woman with the side of her face ripped out reaching for Sam-who had his back to her and was shinning his light at something in a distant corner.

"_Sammy! Behind you!_"

Sam turned around at her scream and his eyes widened as he saw the disfigured ghost standing in front of him, reaching out for him.

"Sammy get _down_!" Dean ordered, aiming his gun.

Sam did as ordered and the sound of a gunshot echoed throughout the room as the ghost shrieked and dissipated immediately, leaving them alone in the room.

Chloe hurried to Sam as Dean looked around for any other attackers. "Are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

"N-no." Sam let Chloe help him to his feet, looking puzzled. "That was weird."

"Yeah, you're telling _me_." Chloe snorted, resorting to snark otherwise she'd cry from the shock of what she'd just witnessed.

"Well, the bitch is gone for now." Dean came towards them and placed a hand on Chloe's shoulder. "Good job."

She smiled shakily at him.

"Dean, that was _weird_." Sam repeated as they began to head through that room to the next.

"You already said that lil bro." Dean announced, sawed off at the ready. "Shock getting to you or something?"

"No, Dean, I mean it was weird that she didn't attack me." Sam announced, holding his own weapon tighter as they left the treatment room and journeyed further into the heart of the South Wing.

"Didn't look that way from where _I_ was standing." Dean announced, keeping his eyes on the darkness around them as they passed open rooms.

Chloe whimpered slightly at the sudden image she got of something reaching out from the darkness of the room and pulling her inside with it. _I should NEVER watch horror movies! They stay in my mind forever!_ Keeping between the brothers, eyes on the screen constantly, Chloe kept vigilant.

"She didn't _hurt_ me." Sam was continuing to argue with Dean over her head. "She didn't even _try_. So if she didn't want to hurt me, what _did_ she want?"

Just as they were crossing another open door, a sound creaked from inside, causing them to turn and look within at the same time.

Sam, who stood closer to the door, place a hand protectively in front of Chloe as he shone a light inside at the darkness of what had obviously been a patient's room. A little moonlight came in through the heavily barred windows, showing a dank room that smelt of pee and whose bed was overturned.

The sound was coming from behind the bed.

Chloe gulped again.

"Stay here." Dean whispered to Chloe as he and Sam entered the room, one shining the flashlight and the other aiming the gun, ready to shoot when the ghost showed itself, both inching soundlessly towards the upturned bed.

When Dean nodded silently to Sam, the taller brother pulled away the bed and suddenly the sound of a female screaming caused Chloe to rush inside of the room, stopping in her tracks when she saw a terrified blonde teenaged girl huddled in the corner.

The boys froze, still aiming the light and gun at her.

"Will you two idiots stop aiming at her?" Chloe asked as she pushed in front of them, looking at the terrified girl who'd obviously been crying and hiding. Chloe bent on her knees in front of her and smiled. "You don't have to be frightened anymore. We're not going to hurt you. We're here to help."

The girl's eyes went frantically to the Winchesters before returning to her.

"Don't mind them, they thought you were a ghost." Chloe outstretched her hand and smiled when the girl placed her shaking one in it, helping her stand up. "Are you okay?"

The girl nodded rapidly, body shaking, breath coming out quick and jagged from fear.

"What's your name?" Dean asked, concerned.

"K-Kathrine." The girl stammered, she could be no older than sixteen. "_Kat_."

"Nice to meet you Kat." Chloe smiled. "I'm Chloe, and these are Sam and Dean Winchester."

"What are you _doing_ here?" Sam asked in confusion.

Kat's eyes widened as if she suddenly remembered something. "My boyfriend Gavin-."

"Is he here?" Dean interrupted.

She nodded, looking around her, clearly upset and terrified. "Somewhere." She closed her eyes and her voice wavered as she tried to keep back tears. "He thought it would be _fun _to come here and try see some ghosts. I thought it was all—you know—_pretend_."

The brothers shared a look.

Kat pulled her coat tighter around her as if it could protect her. "I've seen things," she whispered. "I heard Gavin scream."

Chloe's heart stopped. _Oh no. It got the boy._

"Alright Kat." Dean was spurred into action at this news. "Sam's gonna get you out of here and we're gonna find your boyfriend."

"_No_." The young girl shook her head, dodging his attempt to grab her arm. "I'm not going to leave without Gavin! I'm coming with you."

And suddenly Chloe admired the girl. It was obvious that she was _terrified_, and yet she loved this boy enough to face her fears and search for him.

"This is no joke Kat." Dean frowned. "It's dangerous-."

"Let her stay." Chloe ignored the looks the boys were giving her, and kept her eyes on a grateful Kat. "She's gonna creep back in the moment Sam walks her out of the front door and come look for her boyfriend anyway. At least this way we know that she's safe."

Dean made an annoyed sound.

"She's right, Dean." Sam didn't seem at all pleased with the situation either, but he was at least listening to reason.

For that Chloe was grateful.

Dean sighed, clearly realizing that he wasn't going to get his way in this. "Okay then, we'll just have to split up then. Kat will go with Sam one way and Chloe and I will go the other."

The four nodded, and after deciding on a time and place to meet up later, they split up and went their way.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**So, how did you like this chapter?**

**REVIEW AND TELL ME!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Here you go people, the next chapter in the series and the continuation of the asylum episode!_

_Has some chlam and some chlean, but more chlam than chlean for this chapter._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"_Gavin_?" Kat called out from slightly behind Sam as they searched their section of the asylum. Sam kept his flashlight trained all around them, ready to pull out the rocksalt gun should any spirit attack. He knew that he'd sided with Chloe on letting the teenager stay with them, but he still wished that she wasn't there.

But if it had been _him_ and _Jess_ had disappeared in a place like this he'd be doing the same thing Kat was right now-still, that didn't make him feel less annoyed. They had serious work to be doing and very little time to do so. They needed to find bodies that policemen had looked for for _weeks_ and couldn't find-and they needed to salt and burn the bodies and defend themselves from the spirits-and all in one night.

And on top of it they were looking for a lost teenaged boy who'd probably thought the scary asylum would help him get touchy-closer to his girlfriend. Hell, it worked while watching a scare movie in the cinema, right?

Still, Sam sighed in slight annoyance.

"_Gavin_?" Kat continued to call out faithfully, seeming less afraid now that she was with Sam and more determined to find her boyfriend.

A muscle ticked in Sam's cheek.

This was also Chloe's first hunting trip, and he wanted to be there for her. She was obviously terrified, and he doubted that Dean was the calming influence she'd need. It reminded him too much of his first hunting trip with their father-John Winchester just wasn't the emotional type to handle the justified fears of a young boy.

And Dean with his 'no chic-flick moments' policy wasn't the best person for Chloe to be having to experience _her_ first time with either. If she got terrified he'd probably laugh it off or something.

Then again, Dean _had_ proven himself to act _differently_ when around Chloe in the past-so maybe he'd redeem himself somewhat during this hunt.

Still, Sam really wanted to be there for her and he couldn't.

"_Gavin where __**are**__ you?"_

"Hey I got a question for you." Sam turned to face the girl, causing her to stop in mid-step and look at him in surprise. "You've seen a lot of horror movies with ghosts and demons and monsters, right?"

She hugged herself tightly as if she'd forgotten what could be out there. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Do yourselves a favor." Sam knew that he was being a little short-fused with the girl, but for some reason he felt a little resentful of her, and he knew he was being unfair by being irritated by her, and that just irritated him further. "Next time you see a horror movie, _pay attention_. When someone says a place in haunted—_don't go in_."

Kat looked down and didn't answer.

Sam sighed and turned back to the mission on hand, leading them through the dark pathway before entering a room and pausing when he found the body of a young man laying deathly still on the floor.

"_Gavin_." Kat whispered before hurrying to his side, throwing herself on her knees and shaking him, voice choked. "Gavin—wake up! Wake _up_!"

Sam frowned in worry as he knelt down on the other side of the still boy, worried that maybe they'd gotten there too late.

"_Ga-vin_!" Kat growled and surprise Sam by slapping the still boy's face as hard as she could.

That seemed to do it, and the boy gasped in air, shooting up into a sitting position, eyes wide in terror.

"Hey-," Sam quickly placed his arm on Gavin's shoulder. "It's okay, it's okay. You're safe now."

"_Gavin_!" Kat cried as she threw herself against him, hugging him tightly. "What happened to you? I was so worried!"

"_Kat_." Gavin whispered in relief, hugging her back just as strongly. "God, I was so worried it had gotten you too."

"What got you?" Sam asked, frowning. "What happened to you?"

Gavin suddenly pulled away from his girlfriend and frowned at Sam. "Who are you?"

Sam could have laughed when he saw the jealousy and insecurity in the teenaged boy's eyes when he looked at him. "My name is Sam and my friends and I are here to help."

Gavin frowned darker and opened his mouth to say something else.

Kat rolled her eyes at him and slapped him on his chest. "Gavin. Shut _up_, he's _so_ into his girlfriend it's both romantic and annoying." She grinned. "It's to the point that he's been pissed at me the whole time because when we split up she went with his brother."

Sam cleared his throat and looked away, glad for the darkness, that way the teens wouldn't see that he was blushing in horror. What was that girl _talking_ about? Chloe was _not_ his girlfriend—what would make Kat _think_ that?

"Oh, okay." Gavin blinked, and seemed to relax as Kat helped him stand. He shivered as he looked around him. "I—I remembered I was running, I think I fell and hit my head." He placed his hand to his forehead.

"What were you running from?" Sam asked, standing as well, looking around them in case the thing was still out there.

"There was—there was this _girl_," Gavin began, missing the death-glare his girlfriend gave him at that. "Her face-it was-it was _horrible_."

That seemed to calm Kat a little.

"Okay, this _girl_." Sam tried to calm the suddenly nervous boy. "Did she try to hurt you?"

Gavin hesitated for a moment, gulping and taking a sideways glance at his girlfriend before shaking his head. "N-no. She—uh—she-," he closed his eyes tightly. "She kinda _kissed_ me."

"_WHAT_?" Kat cried out, slapping Gavin hard in the back of his head.

"Ouch baby! Stop!" Gavin ducked and thus avoided the next slap she'd sent towards him. "At first I thought it was you—I _swear_! Her face was covered in darkness and she had your beautiful hair!"

Kat paused in mid-strike, muscle jerking in her cheek, before taking in a deep breath and lowering her hand. "Okay, I won't kill you—for _now_."

Gavin gulped.

Sam was amused by their antics, but he needed to understand what exactly these ghosts were up to. So far there'd been two 'encounters' and in each neither of the ghosts had tried to hurt them-so what were they up to? "So she didn't hurt you—physically?"

"_Dude_, she _kissed_ me!" Gavin exclaimed. "I'm scarred for _life_!"

Sam snorted. "Trust me, it could have been worse. Do you remember anything else?"

Gavin shook his head before pausing. "She—uh—actually she tried to whisper something in my ear."

Sam's eyes widened. "What?"

"I don't know," Gavin admitted sheepishly. "I ran like hell."

That muscle in Kat's cheek was jumping erratically. "That ghost was freakin' trying to seduce you! The _slut_."

Gavin shuddered at the thought.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, now that we found you we should head back to the rendezvous point and meet up with Chloe and Dean." With that he turned and led the way.

"See?" Kat whispered to Gavin as they hurried behind Sam. "What did I tell you? The guy's _whipped_."

Sam closed his eyes in annoyance before opening them again and continuing to lead the way in silence.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"Gavin?" Chloe called out as she walked close to Dean, camera on and still shooting despite everything. "Gavin! We're friends of Kat! Where are you?"

"Damn stupid teenagers." Dean muttered from her right, flashlight aimed around them.

"Dean, _behave_." Chloe admonished as she continued to look through the screen of the video camera.

"No, Chlo _really_." Dean let out an annoyed huff of air. "What sort of stupid idiot goes into a haunted place without at least a rocksalt gun? No, better yet, what sort of stupid idiot goes into a haunted place _period_?"

Chloe bit down on her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

Dean paused and turned to her. "Other than to _hunt_, of course."

The blonde smiled in amusement at him before continuing her recording. "Well, they're just teenagers, Dean, and it's not like they knew that these things really exist."

He snorted, growling when his flashlight began to flicker before dying. "Sonofabitch." The sandy-blonde cursed, shaking the flashlight yet not getting the light to come on.

Chloe gulped, feeling a cold breeze trail down her spine. "Dean?" She whispered, turning her back to him and looking behind her at an empty hallway.

"Don't worry, I got my lighter."

The atmosphere grew colder around her as Chloe felt him grab her arm, most probably trying to keep her safe in his own way. Still, she remembered that the last time she'd felt this cold a ghost had appeared, so she ignored the man holding her arm and kept her wide-eyed gaze behind them.

And then Dean _squeezed_ her arm.

"Stop it." She snapped, trying to jerk her arm out of his hold, refusing to look at him if he wanted to act like such a juvenile. "You're hurting my arm!"

"What are you talking about?" Dean's voice asked from some feet behind her.

Chloe's heart froze as she realized that he couldn't be the one holding her. She breathed in and out, trying to calm her terrified, racing heart, before turning slowly, sure enough seeing Dean a little ahead of her, looking at her in concern.

She could still feel the grip on her arm.

"You okay, gorgeous?" Dean asked, taking a step towards her.

Green eyes, wide in fright, tore away from his worried hazel orbs and went slowly to her arm, Dean's gaze lowering at the same time, and a scream escaped her lips as she saw the scarred hand grabbing onto her.

Suddenly she was jerked out of the hallway by that bodiless hand and into one of the dark rooms, the door slamming shut after her as she was thrown across the room into the wall, the blow to her head causing her to slump to the ground, dizzy as images flashed before her eyes and sounds merged one with the other in a jumbled mess.

"_CHLOE_!" Dean screamed from outside, his voice strained as he obviously tried to pull open the door and yet couldn't. "_HANG ON! I'M GOING TO GET YOU OUT!"_

The sound of something hard hitting against the door repeatedly just added to the jumbled mess in her brain and hurt her.

She screamed, placing her hands to her ears. Images of patients strapped to surgical tables and getting experimented on alive and awake filled her eyes. She screamed as she heard their screams, screamed as she felt the cold enter her and begin to freeze her slowly.

"_CHLOE?"_ Dean's voice was unlike anything she'd ever heard it. "_LET HER GO YOU GODDAMNED BASTARD! DON'T YOU TOUCH HER!"_

Images of tortured faces rushed through her mind so quickly she thankfully didn't see any of them, didn't get to see what years of torture and pain had disfigured them into.

_137_…

"_NO!_" She screamed, digging her fingers into her own hair and pulling with all of her might, watching as one of the girls, young and pretty and blonde, cried out and begged for mercy as she was brutally raped by a couple of the male staff in her room. "_STOP IT!_"

"_CHLOE_?" Sam's voice was now added with Dean's as the banging increased on the door. "_CHLOE! WHAT'S HAPPENING?"_

_137…_

An old man, scarred by having lived life too long in that hellhole, screamed into the material they'd placed into his mouth as the doctor carved into his head with a surgical weapon.

_137…_

"_PLEASE_!" Chloe cried, covering her face with her hands, trying to hide herself from the horrible visions and yet helpless, just like the patients here had once been.

"_CHLOE!"_ Sam screamed.

"_DAMMIT_!" Dean cursed.

_137…_

A woman screaming as she was ducked into a tub of freezing cold water-filled with ice cubes. The water was so cold it _burnt_ at her skin, was like millions of needles being stuck into her whole body brutally, and she tried to get out, tried to end the pain, but she was pushed back down by gloved hands as someone in the background ordered more ice be added to the water.

_137…_

"Stop it," Chloe pleaded, crying into her hands as image after image was forced into her brain, raping her in a way so intimate she feared she'd go insane. "_Please_!"

_137…_

Feeling something sticky in her hands, Chloe pulled them away from her face and screamed when she saw that they were covered in blood.

Her tears fell to the dirty floor thick and red.

She was crying tears of blood.

_A vein must have popped in my eyes due to the stress…_ Chloe tried to rationalize while all the while she kept screaming and screaming.

_137…_

And then that voice whispering in her ear went silent, the images that'd haunted her eyes disappeared, and the cold that'd resided in her body raced out.

The last thing Chloe saw before everything went black was the door flying open and Sam and Dean rushing towards her.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Somehow Sam reached Chloe's still body before Dean, and he collapsed to his knees next to her, dropping the rocksalt gun and the flashlight, forgetting that there was danger out there that could hurt him the same way it had Chloe. Sam forgot about everything as he pulled Chloe's limp, cold body into his arms—into his lap—tears forming in his eyes as she laid motionless.

"_Chloe_?" Dean's voice was small and frightened, unlike Sam had ever heard him, as he knelt on the other side of Sam, reaching over and hesitating only a second before gently pulling Chloe's hair out of her face, revealing the thick trails of blood that ran down her cheeks from her eyes.

Sam heard a growl, and it took a while to realize that it was _him_. When Dean pulled away Chloe's hair from her face, not only had they discovered the trails of blood coming from her eyes, but they saw the numbers that'd been written on her cheek in her own blood.

_137_

"It's a room number." Dean said emotionlessly as he pressed two fingers to the side of Chloe's neck and suddenly breathed out a relieved breath of air. "She has a pulse. It's weak, but it's there. Whatever that mofo did to her, it didn't kill her."

"Is she okay?" Gavin asked as he and Kat hurried into the room, obviously frightened to be left outside alone.

"What happened to her?" Kat gasped.

With a swift movement Sam stood, pulling Chloe's limp body up with him. The brunet's eyes were hard as he looked down on Chloe, shifting her slightly in his arms for more comfort, watching her chest as it rose and fell with each shallow breath she took.

That motherfucker hadn't wanted to kill her, it'd wanted to leave a message for them. All the ghosts here, none of them wanted to kill anyone, but they were desperate enough to go to these extremes to point them towards something _else_.

Usually Sam wouldn't mind any help while on a case, but right now he didn't really give a shit about the case anymore. Chloe had almost died and he hadn't been able to do anything. She'd been tortured-whatever the ghost had done to her it'd been strong enough to cause her _eyes to bleed_.

_What if it damages her eyes? What if she can't see after this?_

Sam held her closer to him protectively, admitting to himself for the first time that he liked Chloe. He liked the feel of her against him, he liked the smell of her hair, he liked the green of her eyes and that cheeky smile of hers.

God, he'd do anything for her to wake up and smile at him.

Dean was hovering around them, looking as distracted as Sam, eyes only on Chloe as he reached forwards and ran his palm over the numbers written in her blood that marred her cheek. "Whatever that bastard is that did this to you, it's dead. I don't care if it didn't kill you, it's dead because it touched you."

Sam nodded his agreement although he glared at Dean. Why hadn't the shorter man kept a better eye on Chloe? It was _his_ fault this had happened!

They'd almost lost Chloe like they'd lost their mother and Sam had lost Jess…

"Sam, take Chloe and the others outside, they should be safe there." Dean ordered, picking up his gun and flashlight, looking grim and determined. "I'm going to find room 137."

With that, Dean marched away, body stiff, obviously ready to kill something.

Sam was torn, because while he wanted to take Chloe out here as fast as possible, he wanted to be there to hurt whatever it was that'd touched Chloe.

"Come on." He growled to the others, as he shifted Chloe's weight in his arms and began to lead the way out, Kat shinning the light next to him.

"Is she going to be okay?" Kat whispered, sending a sideways glance at Chloe.

"Yes." Sam nodded, eyes on the shadows around them. "And Dean and I will be better once we get the sonofabitch that dared _touch_ her."

Silence descended on them for a couple of minutes.

"How do you guys know about all of this stuff anyway?" Gavin asked from slightly behind them, holding Sam's rocksalt gun awkwardly.

"It's kind of our job." Sam wasn't in the mood for talking.

"Why would anyone want a job like that?" Kat wanted to know.

Sam remained silent.

"And your brother Dean…" Kat tried once more. "Is he your boss...in this job?"

Sam snorted. "_No_."

The rest of the journey was made in silence until they finally made it to the doors that would lead them out of the South Wing, but when Gavin and Kat went to open them they found them locked shut.

"Um, I think we have a small problem." Kat announced, looking back at Sam for answers.

"Let's break it down." Gavin frowned at his girlfriend as he gave the suggestion, obviously not pleased that she'd turned to another guy for answers.

Sam's dark gaze studied the door and remembered how it hadn't even _budged_ when the teens had tried to open it. "It's not going to work."

"We'll break the _windows_ then." Gavin was quick to offer another solution.

"Gavin, have you not _seen_ the bars on the windows?" Kat wanted to know.

Gavin looked at the windows and took in a deep breath when he saw said bars. "How are we supposed to get out?"

"That's the point. We're _not_." Sam shifted Chloe's weight in his arms again. "There's something in here, and it doesn't want us to leave."

"Those patients…" Kat whispered.

"No." Sam shook his head. "There's something else in here."

"Like what?" Gavin squeaked, looking around him in horror.

"I don't know." Sam admitted, leaning against the wall, Chloe's head resting against his chest, against his heart. "But whatever it is, it has the ghosts terrified enough to do _this_ to Chloe to help us get rid of it."

His cellular rung.

Kat reached into Sam's backpocket-much to Gavin's obvious dislike-and pulled it out, flipping open the lid and placing the phone to Sam's ear.

He smiled thankfully at her. "Dean?"

"_Sammy_…" Dean's voice was cracked up with static. "_I see it. It's after me. I need your help."_

His eyes widened with worry. "Where are you?"

_"The basement-hurry!_" And the line cut off.

Sam quickly looked around them, and after making a quick decision he carefully lowered Chloe to the ground and pulled off his jacket, rolling it into a bundle and placing it under her head as a pillow before turning to the others. "Look, Dean's found whatever it is in the basement and he needs my help. Do any of you know how to use a gun?"

"Are you kidding me?" Gavin snorted in horror.

"I do." Kat surprised her boyfriend by admitting.

"Good." Sam passed her his gun. "It's loaded with rocksalt. It mightn't kill a ghost—but it'll force it to dispel."

She nodded.

Gavin looked incredulous.

Sam sent a glance in Chloe's direction, "Take good care of her.", before turning and hurrying back the way they'd come, in search of Dean.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Dean Winchester was one angry puppy.

He'd searched the whole place, and while he now was certain he knew who they were up against, he still hadn't come across any ghost to shoot at and try to vent his frustration.

He'd let Chloe get hurt-on _his_ watch.

That girl was probably the only truly honest and caring person left on God's green earth, she'd trusted him explicitly to take care of her while on this hunt and he'd let her get hurt. He'd let some ghost play around with her head, let it hurt her. She'd _bled_ while under his watch.

And he couldn't forgive himself.

While Dean would hate himself for _anyone_ getting hurt while under his care, he knew that this was different-that _Chloe_ was different.

Hell, he'd realized that from that first moment she'd opened the door in Lawrence Kansas and smiled at them. She'd been the one light to brighten the darkness of the house they'd once called their home, and ever since she'd joined him and Sammy things between him and his brother had gotten better.

Sure, they still fought all the time, but they also tried to keep a check on themselves because she was there and because they didn't want to upset her.

_She trusted you and you let her down, Dean. _A little voice inside of his head taunted.

Rounding the bend, Dean only managed to duck back around it when he heard the sound of a gun firing, and in seconds rocksalt imbedded themselves in the wall where his head would have been had he not have such quick reflexes.

"_Dammit_!" He cursed. "_Don't shoot_! _It's me_!"

"Sorry!" Kat could be heard calling.

"_Dean_?" Another female voice asked.

Dean turned the corner rapidly, freezing as he saw Chloe awake, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, wearing Sam's jacket. "_Chloe_." He didn't remember moving but the next thing he remembered he'd pulled her to her feet and hugged her tightly. "You okay, gorgeous?"

"Yeah." She whispered against his chest as he held her close. "I feel a little dizzy and weak, but other than that I'm great all things considered."

Dean breathed in the scent of her hair to try and calm the beating of his heart. She was fine. She was _fine_.

"It's Ellicott." Chloe whispered against his shirt. "The one face I saw during all the images, the one who was doing all the hurting, the one everyone feared. It was Doctor _Ellicott_."

"_What_?" Kat gasped.

Dean pulled away slightly and looked at Chloe's pale face. Images? Had the ghosts shown her their memories? Was _that_ why her eyes had bled? "I know. I found his logbook. He was experimenting on his patients—_awful stuff_—makes lobotomies look like a couple of aspirin."

"I don't get it." Gavin announced slowly, edging towards his girlfriend as if for protection.

"That's why they rioted." Chloe nodded her head in agreement, voice soft with fatigue. "They were rioting against him—against what he was doing to them."

Dean saw her shiver, and grew worried. Was she looking paler?

"What else did you find out in the logbook?" Chloe whispered.

"Well, uh, Doctor 'Feel-Good' was working on some sort of extreme rage-therapy." Dean continued. "He thought if his patients could just vent their anger then they'd be cured, but he only made them worse and worse and angrier and angrier."

"His spirit's doing the same thing." Chloe whispered the conclusion Dean had come up with as well. "He's making everyone so angry they become homicidal."

"Exactly, Nancy Drew." Dean was proud of her. "We have to find his bones and torch them. The logbook said he had some sort of hidden procedure room down in the basement where he'd work on his patients. If _I_ was a patient during the riot I'd have dragged his ass back down there to do a little work on him myself before offing the bastard."

"So you and Sammy are going to look for the secret room." Chloe deduced, before pulling away slightly and looking behind Dean with a confused frown. "Where's Sammy?"

"What do you mean? He was with you guys." Dean frowned, suddenly realizing that his brother wasn't with the others. "And why aren't you guys out of here anyway?"

"What do you _mean_, he was with us?" Gavin exclaimed. "He went to the basement. You _told_ him to go to the basement when you called him on his cellular."

And Dean froze. "I didn't call him."

That caused everyone's eyes to widen in horror.

"Dammit, it was a trap!" Dean turned and hurried away, gun drawn praying that it wouldn't be too late and someone else that he loved wouldn't get hurt that night.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe shivered as she sat on the floor, recuperating her strength, as Gavin and Kat stood guard. She hated feeling so useless and helpless like this. She wished her first hunt hadn't gone so spectacularly bad. After this Dean and Sam would _definitely_ rethink letting her hunt with them again.

The blonde sighed, tuning out the conversation between boyfriend and girlfriend.

_Get up…_

Chloe's eyes widened as she looked around for that voice.

_Trouble…_

_Need help…_

"Do you two hear that?" Chloe whispered.

Kat and Gavin froze as they looked all around them, silent as death.

Green eyes widened when she saw behind the teenagers the glowing body of the young girl whom she'd seen raped by the countless staff members, Dr. Ellicott in attendance as well.

_You have to help them_.

Suddenly a gunshot rang through the silence of the asylum.

Chloe shot to her feet. "You two stay here."

"But-!" Kat began.

Chloe rushed out, knowing that she was vulnerable without a weapon and not caring. She also knew that she was following the shimmer of a ghost, knew that ghosts had killed many an innocent person before, and yet the ghost of this young girl made her feel…trusting…and the blonde just went on instincts as she followed the faint shimmer of light down down down to the basement, through doors and darkness, until she froze as she entered the secret procedure room and came upon a sight she would never have expected.

Sam was standing over a fallen Dean, blood dripping down his nose, aiming a gun at his elder brother.

"_Sam Winchester_!" She cried out in horror, unable to understand what was going on. "What the _hell_ do you think you're _doing_?"

Both Winchesters turned to look at her in surprise.

"Chloe, get _out_!" Dean groaned in pain from where he was on the ground. "Ellicott did something to him!"

Sam turned his attention to Dean and narrowed his eyes, kicking his brother brutally in his ribs. "Enough with the ordering! You think you're our boss! Sam do this, Chloe do that! You think you're so great, you're the better son because you stayed, you're the better hunter because you stayed. Well guess what, _better hunter_? You almost got Chloe _killed_!"

Dean flinched at that as if Sam had kicked him again.

"Another person I care about almost died tonight because of _you_ and your _incompetence_!" Sam cocked the gun.

"_Sam_!" Chloe cried out, terrified and yet relieved when he turned to look at her. "Sam, this isn't you, this is Ellicott. You have to fight his influence, Sam, you're stronger than this."

Emotions raced through Sam's eyes, and his nose began to bleed again, his hand wavering.

He was fighting it. He'd probably been fighting it all along and they hadn't even realized it.

"That's it, Sam." Chloe eased herself towards them. "You can do it-you can fight him." She walked over Dean and carefully placed herself between him and the gun.

The blood dripping from Sam's nose continued to drip faster and faster, and Chloe slowly eased her fingers down his arm to his hand and took the gun away from his shaky grip, throwing it to the farthest corner of the room, keeping Sam's agonized dark gaze locked with hers. "Dean, find that body. Its hurting Sam to fight the influence."

Dean muttered something as he picked himself up and hurried to do as said.

Chloe kept her gaze on Sam's, rubbing his cold arms, trying to be there for him. "That's it Sam, you can do it." She raised her hand and wiped away at the blood flowing from his nose. "Dean'll soon find the body and everything will be alright."

Sam nodded jerkily.

"I found it!" Dean called after a couple of minutes of frantic searching. "This sucker is gonna _burn_!"

"See?" Chloe whispered to Sam, whose eyes were darker and trained on hers.

Suddenly there was a crash from behind them, and Chloe turned around at Dean's cry of pain, eyes wide in horror when she saw him flat on his back, the ghost of Dr. Ellicott straddling him, his fingers digging into Dean's head and crackling with electricity.

"_Don't be afraid_…" The doctor cooed as Dean cried and withered under his electric touch. "_I'm going to help you-I'm going to make you all better._"

"Get the fuck _off _of him!" Picking up the discarded rocksalt gun that Sam had dropped by his feet in favor of the _real_ gun in which he was going to shoot his brother, Chloe aimed and fired, the rocksalt hitting the doctor in the head.

The ghost cried as it was forced to dissipate for at least a couple of seconds.

And that was all Dean needed. He quickly reached for his lighter, lit it and threw it at the body of the doctor where it'd been crammed inside of one of his cabinets.

The body caught on fire just in time for Dr. Ellicott to materialize once more. The ghost advanced on Dean until he suddenly froze and looked at his hands as they seemed to light on fire. The ghost suddenly seemed to realize what was happening, because he turned to his body and screamed as he suddenly went up in flames and disappeared.

Sam gasped and nearly collapsed, but Chloe'd turned and grabbed him just in time, holding him up despite how much heavier than she he was. "Sam?"

"God, my head hurts." He whispered.

"Sam? Chloe?" Dean asked as he got up and limped towards them, ignoring Dr. Ellicott's burning body. "Are you two okay?"

Chloe smiled and when Dean had limped into arm's reach, she surprised both of them by her pulling them into a threeway hug, which was more than a little awkward from the brothers but she didn't care.

They were safe and they were together, for now, for _Chloe_ that was all that mattered.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

After Dr. Ellicott's spirit was vanquished, they'd been able to leave the asylum, and hadn't seen any spirits on their way out. Hopefully, now that Dr. Ellicott could no longer haunt the halls, the spirits of those whose lives he'd destroyed could finally find some peace.

The trio had said goodbye to Kat and Gavin, and journeyed to their motel, where Chloe had gotten into her bed and fallen fast asleep, exhausted from the night's ordeal.

The brothers though, well, the tension that they'd been having for the last couple of days had escalated as they remembered the things that'd been said while alone in Dr. Ellicott's secret proceeding room.

"Dean…" Sam finally sighed. "I'm sorry man, I said some awful things back there."

Dean paused for a moment before pulling off his shirt, readying to sleep on the makeshift matress on the floor. "So you remember all that."

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "It's like I couldn't control it-but I didn't mean it. Any of it."

"You didn't, huh?" Dean didn't sound so sure as he pulled off his boots and unbuckled his pants.

"No." Sam was surprised. "Of course not."

Dean nodded before pulling back the sheets and getting in.

Sam looked up from his spot on the floor, having seen the expression on his brother's face. "Do we need to talk about this?"

Dean snorted softly, shaking his head as he pulled the sheets up over himself. "No. I'm not really in the sharing-caring kinda mood. I just want to get some sleep."

And so Sam laid down on his makeshift bed on the ground and stayed quiet, finally falling asleep as well to the sound of his brother's snores.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but Sam awoke to the sound of a cellular ringing. _Dean's_ cellular. It was sitting on the table between Dean's and Chloe's beds, ringing loudly.

"_Dean_." Sam tried to hiss to his brother without any luck. "It's gonna wake up Chloe."

Dean's only answer was to snore louder and turn away from Sam, still deep in sleep.

Sighing, realizing that his brother was dead to the world, Sam got up and answered the phone sleepily. "Hello?" Suddenly all sleep left his in seconds as he heard the voice on the other end of the line. "_Dad_?"

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**So I finished the asylum episode…24 pages long this chapter was (am speaking like yoda), and I hope you people all appreciate me staying up till 1:37 AM to finish this despite the fact that I have to get up early THIS MORNING for work!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Yippee! I have so much planned for this season that I'm so excited! Thank you everyone who reviewed the last chapter._

_A lot of people have been pm'ing and asking if this is a crossover with Smallville really only because of Chloe and the mentioning of other characters, but I'll let you know that NO, it isn't only going to be like that. __**Other characters from Smallville WILL APPEAR**__ in this series, as in episodes or phone calls or guest appearances._

_Also, I'm really toying with the idea about doing a __**second season**__ as well, and if I do I'll be bringing more and more of __**Lois**__ into the story—starting slowly from this season just in case. I really love her SV character (though it's hard for me to see her with Clark in the Smallville premise) and I think she'd bring a lot of interesting things into her 'regular guest appearances'…_

_I'm wondering from now though about a love interest for her. As this is AU I'm going for someone __**VERY unconventional**__ (and no Clark, Ollie, Sam or Dean, or any hero or superhero, etc.) so that'll prove interesting but challenging-something I love! I'm going over like a few guys or girls that could be her __**love interest**__, so, yeah, just want to let you know what to expect so you can prepare yourselves!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The tension in the Impala as Sam drove and Dean sat in the front passenger's seat, looking at a map and other information, was palpable. Chloe didn't like how things were darkening between the brothers. They obviously loved each other, but their stark differences, their arguments over their father, the residue tension from what'd happened in the Roosevelt Asylum-_everything_ was weighing down on them.

And John Winchester's phone call earlier that day hadn't helped things at all. He'd spoken briefly to each of the boys, but it'd been enough to prove that he truly was above his game. Not only had he found out about Jess' death and Chloe's journeying with the boys—something he wouldn't explain _how_ he knew—but he'd finally figured out what it was that'd killed his wife, and ultimately, had killed Jess.

It was a _demon_.

A demon had taken Sam and Dean's mom away from them just as one had done to Chloe. At least though Dean and Sam knew that their mother was dead, Chloe on the other hand had only discovered through her many conversations with the boys that her mother had been possessed when she'd disappeared.

Unless John suddenly wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Chloe and tell her what'd happened after he'd rushed after the possessed Moira Sullivan Chloe would never know if her mother was alive or if she was dead.

And it was the not-knowing that was the worst.

_I hate not knowing something_.

Chloe closed her eyes and sighed.

Getting back on topic, once Sam had realized that his father was closing in on the demon that'd killed both his mother and girlfriend he'd wanted to know where his father was to help him, but John had told him _no_, that it was too dangerous and that there was much more to stake here than they knew.

Considering that he'd left them practically in the dark, well, that wasn't surprising.

Instead of telling them where he was, John gave the boys a set of names and then ended the call by telling them to look after Chloe, that he wasn't exactly sure how she fit into all of this, but he believed she did.

That, of course, had only _added_ to the tension that already existed between the brothers.

"Alright," Sam broke into the silence. "The names dad gave us, they're all couples?"

"Yep." Dean nodded, looking over the information. "Three different couples-they all went missing."

"And they're all from different towns?" Sam asked, clearly confused about something. "Different states?"

"That's right. You've got Washington, New York, Colorado—and each couple took a road trip cross-country and none of them arrived at their destination." Dean turned and looked at his brother. "None of them were heard from again."

"Why is your dad sure that this is one of _our_ types of cases?" Chloe asked from the backseat as she logged into her email account, surprised to see so many email messages waiting for her. "This is a big country and people disappear all of the time."

"True, but there's something in common with these couples." Dean explained. "Each of their routes took them to the same place in Indiana, always on the second week of April, one year after another after another."

Sam paused. "This _is_ the second week of April."

"Which explains why John called us about the hunt now." Chloe murmured as she wondered whose email to open first. "Your dad's sending us to Indiana to hunt and kill whatever it is that's killing these couples before another one vanishes."

"Yahtzee." Dean nodded, eyes on the information on his lap that their father had given them over the phone. "Can you imagine putting together a pattern like this? I mean—just think of all the different obits dad had to go through." He shook his head. "The man's a master."

Chloe rolled her eyes and clicked on Oliver's email, watching as the message came up on the full screen.

_Sidekick,_

_Haven't seen or heard from you in a while. I understand why you've been away but you know a phone call now and then won't hurt. I know that that goes both ways and that I haven't exactly been burning up my phone bill either, but things have been pretty complicated during the last couple of months, as I'm sure Clark has let you know._

_Something our mutual friend has let everyone in our little 'club' know is that he doesn't exactly trust the guys that you're traveling with. He says that they seem unpredictable and he doesn't think they're taking good care of you._

_Now, Sidekick, I don't like the sound of that, so I'm going to be checking up on you personally very soon, be expecting me to popup at any time._

_Have to go, Bart's raiding the fridge again and I just restocked._

_Take care,_

_Oliver_

Chloe smiled as she shook her head at her friend and sometimes-boss before sending him a quick reply telling him that he didn't need to check up on her, that the boys were not half as bad as Clark in his protectiveness had probably painted them.

She finished the email and sent it off.

"What are you doing?"

The blonde looked up at the confusion in Dean's voice and only then did she realize that Sam had pulled off on the side of the road. "Did we get a flat or something?"

"No." Sam's voice was tense. "We're just not going to Indiana."

"Huh?" Chloe frowned, closing the lid of her laptop and placing it on the seat besides her, leaning forwards between the two front seats and turning to Sam. "Why not?"

"What are you talking about?" Dean wanted to know from in front of Chloe.

"We're going to California." Sam announced, jaw tense, eyes on the road ahead of them. "Dad called from a payphone, it was a Sacramento area code."

"_Sam_…" Dean started.

"Dean." Sam cut in, turning to look at his brother. "If this demon killed mom and Jess and dad's closing in on it-we've got to be there to help."

"Dad doesn't _want_ our help."

"I don't care." Sam responded.

Dean narrowed his eyes at his brother. "He's given us an _order_."

"I don't _care_." Sam repeated, eyes narrowed as well.

Dean's expression was shock as he tilted his head slightly.

Chloe, feeling that this was a matter between the brothers, slid back into the backseat, feeling awkward and uncomfortable to have to listen to something that was obviously family business.

"We don't _always_ have to do what he says!" Sam exclaimed.

"Sam, dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives—it's _important_." Dean was obviously losing his patience with his younger brother.

"I understand that—believe me I do." Sam hurriedly assured. "But I'm talking _one week_ here man, to get answers—to get _revenge_."

Dean closed his eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath before turning to his brother once more. "Look, I know how you feel-."

"_Do_ you?" Sam countered, emotion thick in his voice. He shook his head and chuckled, but it was a sad sound. "How old were you when mom died? Four? Jess died _six months ago_." He paused for a second to let that information sink in. "How the _hell_ would you know how I feel?"

"Dad said it wasn't safe, for _any_ of us." Dean seemed unaffected by Sam's remark. "He obviously knows something that _we don't_, so if he says to stay away _we stay away_!"

"I don't understand the _blind faith_ you have in the man." Sam shook his head in disgust. "I mean—it's like you don't even _question him_!"

"Yes, Sam, it's called being a _good son_." Dean finally snapped back.

Sam glared at his brother before opening the car door and getting out, slamming the door shut behind him.

"_God_." Dean growled as got out of the car as well and followed Sam to the now open trunk of the Impala. "You're a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. You don't care what anybody thinks."

Since the lid of the trunk was open it blocked the back mirror, so Chloe couldn't see the brothers, but she could hear them easily.

"Is that what you really think?" Sam asked.

"_Yes_."

Sam scoffed. "Well, this selfish bastard is going to California." The trunk was slammed down and that was when Chloe realized in horror that Sam had taken his things out and had turned to leave—was already beginning to walk away.

_No!_

Chloe threw the door open and stumbled out of the car in her haste. "_Sam_!"

He froze in mid-step, back still to them, and wouldn't look back.

"Don't worry gorgeous, he's not _seriously_ going to go." Dean told her. "He's just being a bitch right now."

"I _am_ going to California." And Sam said that with so much conviction that Chloe believed him, her heart falling to the pit of her stomach as she looked at his back in the dark of the night, watched him standing there, holding his duffle bag and computer bag, ready to walk away from them.

"_Sam_?" She whispered.

"It's the middle of the night." Dean called to his brother. "Hey, I'm taking off and I'm leaving your ass, you hear me?"

Sam finally turned and shrugged. "That's what I want you to do."

The brothers looked at each other in silence, countless emotions rushing over their features before Dean suddenly broke eye-contact and turned away. "Goodbye Sam." Pulling out the keys from the trunk he headed towards the driver's side and with one last look at his brother, he got in.

That left Chloe and Sam standing alone in the dark, empty highway, looking at each other in silence.

"Sam?" Chloe whispered, hating the fact that her eyes were filling with unshed tears as she stood there, not knowing what she was asking him but asking him it all the same.

Sam gave her a small smile. "I _have_ to go, Chloe. The most important thing for me right now is to find the demon that ruined my life and get revenge for Jess-for _mom_." His gaze shot to the Impala when the engine roared to life, before his gaze returned to Chloe. "I can't stay here. I _can't_."

"I know." The blonde whispered.

She didn't remember moving but suddenly she was propelling forwards into his arms, burying her face in his shirt and crying as his arms went around her, his heat enveloping her body protectively as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"I'm going to be fine, Chlo." Sam whispered against her hair, hugging her tighter to him, his voice cracking suspiciously. "I'm going to find dad and help him kill that son of a bitch whether he wants me help or not. And then I'm going to come back, okay?"

She nodded against his shirt but didn't trust her voice enough to speak.

"And it's not like I'm going to disappear off the map or anything." Sam chuckled hoarsely. "I mean, I'll keep in contact by phone and we'll chat or email."

"Daily." She murmured, voice slightly muffled as she spoke into his shirt.

"'Course." Sam agreed, and when she pulled away enough so that they were looking into each others eyes, he smiled slightly as his thumb wiped away at the tears staining her face. "Just take care of Dean for me, okay?"

"Of course." Chloe nodded, pulling away completely and hugging herself, feeling a little silly for having thrown herself at him like that. "You take care of yourself as well, okay?"

He nodded. "Go on, you guys have a lot of driving to do."

Chloe cleared her throat, took in a deep breath and nodded. "You're right." Turning her back on him and getting back into the car—this time the side passenger's seat—was a hard thing to do, but she did it.

"Was wondering whether you were staying or leaving too." Dean admitted as he took off, shifting the car into a higher gear and speeding away, eyes on the road ahead of them.

Putting on her seatbelt, Chloe turned and looked at Dean, studying his face. Anyone who didn't know him would think that he didn't really care that his brother had just walked out and left him, but Chloe knew better. She noticed the hurt in his eyes and the manly pride that kept him from admitting it.

For Dean Winchester, family was his top priority, and for him, this was the second time that Sam had walked out and left him alone without apparently caring that he'd done so.

If there was one thing Dean Winchester truly feared-it was being alone…

…Just like her.

Smiling sadly, Chloe surprised them both by placing her hand above his on the gear stick. "I'm not going anywhere."

Dean tensed in surprise before turning to look at her and blinking, clearing his throat and relaxing under her touch as he returned his attention to the road.

Neither of them spoke much after that, nor did they comment when sometime during the long drive their fingers threaded together while Metallica serenaded them into the night.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

When Chloe woke up she was sleeping in a soft, comfy bed. She smiled and stretched, yawning, not very surprised. Whenever they'd find a motel while she was asleep in the Impala the boys would usually just pick her up and transfer her to the bed instead of waking her up.

_Dean must have done it_.

Thoughts of Dean led to thoughts of Sam, and thoughts of Sam reminded her what'd happened the night before.

_I wonder how he is. Maybe I should call him._

As if having read her mind, her cellular rung from where it was placed on the nightstand. Chloe reached over, picked it up and smiled when she saw the caller ID. Flipping the lid open, she pressed it to her ear.

"Hey Sam."

"Hey Chlo." The brunette Winchester sounded in better spirits this morning. "How are you?"

"I'm in a nice warm bed," she yawned, sitting up and looking around the motel room for the first time since waking up. "And I think this has got to be the nicest place I've stayed in since traveling with you guys."

"Oh." Sam cleared his throat. "So where are you guys?"

"Well, if we're where Dean and I decided all three couples crossed through on their road trips we should be in a small town called Burkitsville." Chloe announced as she got out of bed and went to the bathroom, admiring the stenciling on the tiles. "Gosh, this place is nice."

"You make it sound as if we usually take you to dumps." Sam laughed.

"Sam, you guys _do_ usually take me to dumps." Chloe replied truthfully, grimacing at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a mess and the side of her face had the imprint of the pillow. "Did you get any sleep?"

"Nah. I just walked." Sam answered. "I was talking to this girl who was hitchhiking as well, but not for long because she got a ride and I didn't—and she thought I might be some killer-freak because I was hitchhiking."

Chloe raised an eyebrow, rubbing her cheek to try and get rid of the pillow print. "But wasn't _she_ hitchhiking?"

"My point _exactly_."

The blonde shook her head and laughed.

"Well, uh, I see a car in the distance. I'm going to try and hitch a ride to the bus station in the next town." Sam spoke. "I'll call you when I get there, okay?"

"Okay. Bye." Hanging up, Chloe put away her cellular and went to bathe. When she finished she changed into fresh clothes and checked on her other emails. There was one from Clark saying about how things were going for him in Met U, one from Pete telling her how things were great in the home in Lawrence and how nothing 'weird' had happened since she'd left; there was even one from Lois saying how Lucy and some of her 'snobby bitches' of friends had come to spend the long weekend and how things were getting worse and worse with her father, a retired general who was miserable and had a temper that could get violent at times.

And, surprisingly enough, the last email was from Lana.

_Hey Chloe,_

_I'm sorry for not talking to you sooner, but as Clark has probably already told you, I left Smallville and dropped out of Met U. I just needed some time alone, you know? To get over Clark and get my life together._

_I love him so much but I can't live with this huge secret he won't tell me, and I need to be away from him if I'm ever going to truly be able to get over him and move on._

_So, I'm staying in a small town called River Grove right now. It reminds me somewhat of Smallville, and the people are nice-I study at the community college and work in a gift shop, and board with a friend I met here._

_The place is lovely, but I miss you guys so terribly-especially you, Chloe. You turned out to be my only true friend, and I don't want us to be distant any more._

_I'm sorry for how I've behaved-and I hope that you'll come and visit me. I miss how close we used to be._

_Your repentant friend,_

_Lana Lang_

Chloe paused as she read Lana's letter, not exactly sure how to reply. She wanted to write back not to worry, that things were the same between them and that she still loved her as the sister she'd never had-but would that be the truth?

Sure, Chloe still loved Lana, she was happy she was fine and yes, she wanted to visit her and know for sure that she was okay, but it wasn't going to be the same.

It might never be.

And yet Lana had done a first and made the first step for reconciliation, and Chloe wasn't going to let their differences in the past keep them from moving forwards.

So with that in mind, she wrote Lana back.

She was finished with her emails and reading up the information John Winchester had given them about the couples by the time Dean arrived with hot coffee and muffins. "Hey. I love this motel."

He smiled brightly at her, kicking the door closed behind him. "Thought you would." Passing her her cup and muffin, Dean sat down on the bed next to her. "I got us a one bed room because I thought, since Sammy isn't here we should make the best of it, right? If couples are the ones disappearing maybe we should play a couple, maybe we'll figure something out."

Chloe took a sip of the coffee and moaned at the wonderful taste. "I haven't seen outside of this motel room and yet I'm in love with this place." She turned and smiled at Dean. "And your plan? Ingenious."

"Well, thank you." He grinned before clearing his throat and looking down at his muffin. "Have you, uh, heard from Sam?"

Chloe smiled at Dean. "Yeah, he called me a little while ago, said he was trying to hitch a ride to the next town so he could get to the bus station."

Dean sighed, tearing a chunk out of his muffin and throwing it into his mouth, chewing it as if it'd done something against him before swallowing. "He's gonna get himself hurt, Chloe." The sandy-blonde whispered. "I heard dad's voice, he was _frightened_, and if there's something out there that can frighten _my father_…"

"Sam's gonna be alright." Chloe reached out and placed her hand in Dean's again, smiling slightly when he didn't grow tense with her touch, but closed his fingers over her much smaller hand. "You and your daddy taught him everything he needs to survive. He'll make you two proud, I'm sure of it."

Dean smiled softly and turned to look at her. "Thanks Chloe." He paused. "For everything. For listening to me when I needed to talk, for being there for Sam when he was acting all Emo because of Jessica, for putting up with us bitching like old women, and for, well, for staying."

She squeezed his hand and reached forwards, pressing a kiss against his cheek. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere. You and Sam, you're closer than family for me right now, and I don't plan on leaving."

Dean cleared his throat and looked down at his muffin.

Chloe smiled at how embarrassed Dean got during moments of true emotion. He was like a little kid who didn't know what to do or how to react, and unlike Sammy he hadn't had much experience with people, hadn't had someone like Jess to show him that emotion could be a good thing.

_I'm going to have to work on you, Dean Winchester_.

Taking another sip of her divine coffee, Chloe sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Have you asked around about the last couple, the Parkers?"

"Yeah." Dean's voice was odd, as if he was finding it hard to speak, and he cleared his throat roughly. "Uh, I asked around at the bakery and coffee shop, and I asked some other people—showed the missing people's fliers you got off of the Internet. Everyone who I've shown it to says that they'd never seen the Parkers before."

"But you don't believe them." Chloe didn't need to see Dean's face to know this, she could hear it in his voice.

"No, they were all bright-eyed and friendly until I showed them those posters and then they grew more wary." Dean admitted. "Sure, it was really subtle and anyone else wouldn't have noticed it, but I'm used to looking for the signs, you know?"

"Maybe I should ask around." Chloe declared suddenly. "They mightn't find a young woman suspicious, you know? Most people let their guards down while around me. They might talk or 'remember'."

"Or they might just do with you whatever they did to the other couple."

Chloe pulled away and frowned at Dean. "You think the townspeople themselves somehow did something to the couples that disappeared?"

Dean paused. "Or they know what happened and just aren't saying anything."

"But why wouldn't they say something?" Chloe questioned as they dined on their muffins and coffee.

"Fear, maybe?" Dean shrugged. "All I know is that this town is too _nice_ in my opinion. _Way_ too Stepford."

Chloe grinned. "Are you telling me you watched that movie?"

Dean's eyes widened. "This is something we will never mention again…_ever_."

She giggled as she slugged his arm playfully. "I bet you watch Oprah on the sly too, don't you?"

He was blushing.

Honest to God _blushing_. "Yeah, well, what would be so wrong with that?"

She threw her head back and laughed freely before finishing her muffin, deciding to let him off the hook. "So, Mr. Winchester, who are we going to ask about the Parkers next?"

He grinned, looking relieved at the change in topic. "Well, _Mrs_. Winchester, I was thinking maybe we should try the general store and gas station. If the Parkers were passing through here like we think, they would have most probably stopped to fill up their tank." Dean reasoned. "I say our story should be that we're newly married and passing through, just visiting a few places we know our old buddies the Parkers went through before they disappeared."

"Good reasoning, Watson."

"Dude," Dean sent her an amused glance. "I am _so_ Sherlock Holmes. _You're_ Watson."

"Dream on, Winchester." Chloe grinned as they got up and left the room to go ask around about the Parkers. "_Dream on_."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Well, everyone, this is an update! Hope you like it! And review! Reviews give me inspiration!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Hey, glad that everyone liked the last chapter and the thought of __**Lois**__ slowly joining the cast as a 'regular guest' (though, the operative word here is SLOWLY), and I'm still going through some people whom I could pair her up with (I want it to be __**as unconventional as possible**__), kinda make Lois and whoever the __**odd couple**__, lol, I see her making it work. The girl is cool and feisty and I liked seeing her in the relationships she had in Smallville. _

_**There will be some CHLEAN in this chapter.**_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

They walked into _Jorgeson General Store_ all grins, trying to capture that 'newly wed' air that people always talked about. Dean's arm was possessively around her waist, hand resting on her hip, grabbing her by one of the buckles of her khakis. Chloe made sure to lean towards her 'husband' as they looked around, her arm around him, her hand shoved into the back pocket of his jeans.

She hoped that her flush of embarrassment of having her hand in such a private and personal place as his ass was mistaken for a flush of happiness as Dean pressed a kiss to the side of her face and squeezed her slightly.

"_Baby_, behave." She chuckled softly, pretending not to notice the way the owner of the shop, an elderly gentleman, and his wife smiled at them.

"Honeymooners?" The woman behind the counter finally asked, smiling.

"Is it that obvious?" Dean exclaimed with a smile, pulling Chloe closer to him.

"Sure is." The man announced, looking at his wife fondly. "I remember when my Stacie and I were just married-couldn't keep our hands off of each other either."

"So, what brings you two to Burkitsville?" Stacie asked, leaning forwards on the counter.

"We're road-tripping for our honeymoon." Chloe explained, placing her free hand on Dean's chest, over his heart, looking up at him with a smile. "We met on the road-my car broke down and Dean here stopped to help when he saw me on the side of the road trying to fix it."

"I knew she was special from the moment she looked up at me and smiled." Dean announced, grinning sheepishly before turning to look at her and press a quick kiss to the tip of her nose. "Isn't that _true_, sweetums?"

"Of _course_ shnookie-ookums." Chloe rubbed her nose against his affectionately, enjoying this game a little too much.

Stacie and her husband shared a smile.

"So…" Dean finally turned to the elder couple. "Since we met on the road we decided we wanted to commemorate it by spending our honeymoon on a road trip, making love in motels all across America."

Chloe gasped and elbowed him as hard as she could. "_Dean_!"

The couple laughed.

Chloe then sighed, making her face fall in sadness. "Well, there's also another reason we decided to road trip." She sighed again, looking away from the owners of the general store and gas pump, trying to look disheartened. "A year ago two friends of ours were doing a road trip as well and they disappeared."

"_Honey_…" Dean played the part of the worried spouse as he sighed and hugged her closer, turning to look at the suddenly stiff couple as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the two missing posters, one of Vince Parker and the other of his wife Helen. "I know it's a long shot, but do remember seeing these people by any chance?"

Chloe sniffled, turning her back on them, wiping at her eyes and pretending to be barely keeping tears at bay.

"No." Stacie spoke first. "Harley and I have never seen these people before. I'm sorry."

"Are you _sure_ they didn't stop for gas or something?" Dean pressed. "Helen was like a sister for Chloe, and we're trying to find out what happened to them-we-we-all we're really asking for is some answers into their disappearance. We need closure."

_Oh Winchester, you are so _**good**!

"I'm so sorry for your loss." Harley replied, sounding genuine in that sentiment. "But I don't remember seeing them before. When did you say that they disappeared?"

"A year ago this week." Chloe whispered, turning back to them, giving them what she hoped looked like a wavering smile. "Dean and I held off the wedding for a whole year-hoping against hope that Vince and Helen would reappear and they'd be our witnesses, we wanted them to have a p-p-part."

"_Honey_, _please_." Dean passed Harley the papers and went to hug Chloe, pulling her tightly against her, his heat enveloping her, pressing a kiss to her head much like Sam had done the night before. "Remember your promise? We'd do this only if you were strong, if you didn't let it drag you back into a depression."

Chloe hugged him tightly. "I know baby, I'm sorry."

"What's going on here? Is she okay?" A new voice spoke, and they turned to see a young redhead appearing with a box in her hand.

"Yes Emily, she is fine." Stacie nodded. "This nice couple was just telling us about some friends of theirs who passed this way a year ago and disappeared. Sad story."

"And more tragic that we can't help." Harley passed Dean back the posters.

"Wait, did the guy have a tattoo?" The young woman wanted to know.

Chloe's eyes darted to the posters in Dean's hands and she nodded, seeing the large tattoo running up the expanse of Vince's arm. "Yes, Vince did."

Dean handed the redhead the poster of Vince after she put the box on the counter next to Stacie.

Emily looked at the photo of Vince Parker before turning to Harley. "Don't you remember him and his wife? They were just married." She passed the poster back to Harley. "I remember because we don't get a lot of out-of-towners."

The older man frowned at the poster for a while before bringing his fist to his mouth. "I think you might be right. They stopped for gas, didn't they?"

Emily nodded with a smile. "They weren't here for more than 20 minutes, but I specifically remember that guy's tat and liking it."

"This is amazing," Chloe whispered, eyes wide, playing her part as best as she could. "Do you hear that baby? They saw Helen and Vince!"

"Do you remember anything else?" Dean asked Harley.

The older man looked up from the poster. "I told them how to get to the Interstate. They left town."

"Could you point us in that same direction?" Dean wanted to know before sharing a look with Chloe.

"Sure." Harley nodded and began to give them the same directions he'd given to the Parkers a year ago.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"You were great." Dean laughed in amusement as they followed the route Harley had given them.

"Me? _Please_." Chloe snorted before imitating Dean's voice. " 'We need closure.'" She giggled. "Winchester, that was _brilliant_."

"Yes, well, we outdid ourselves gorgeous, and we now know that if we ever truly need a day job, acting in day-time drama could be a viable source of income."

Chloe laughed and would have said something but the sound of something making noise in the backseat caught her attention. "Is that the EMF meter?"

"_Dammit_. I must have forgotten to turn it off in the asylum." Dean growled, obviously annoyed with himself for that mistake. "I'm going to have to charge it once we get back to the motel. It's probably dying or something."

"But it sounds like it's picking up something." Taking off her seatbelt, Chloe turned and looked in the backseat while Dean continued driving, going through Dean's duffle bag before finding the EMF meter, gasping when she saw the lights blinking red furiously. "Stop."

"What are you-?" Dean asked and then stopped in mid-sentence.

Chloe frowned and turned slightly to look at him, wondering why he'd stopped speaking. Her green eyes narrowed when she realized that he'd turned to look back at her and had realized that the position she was in while she tried to check the backseat gave him a great view of her jeans covered ass…

A view he was apparently enjoying if the expression on his face was anything to go by.

"Dean Winchester, just _stop_ the car."

"Uh? Oh, yeah." He blinked, shaking his head as if trying to get out of a trance, and stopped the car on the side of the road.

Chloe rolled her eyes and turned around, sitting back on the seat, the EMF meter in her hand, all the lights furiously red.

Dean frowned as he looked at it. "That's some serious reading there."

"I know." Chloe got out of the parked car and looked around. There really wasn't much except for open-grazing fields and an orchard a little further down the road.

The blonde turned towards the orchard and narrowed her eyes, beginning to walk towards it on instinct.

"Hey! What are you doing?" A car door slammed shut and Dean jogged to catch up with her. He looked at the EMF reader, watching as the blinking grew crazier as they got closer to the entrance of the orchard, and he made a face as he looked within the large expanse of land. "Spooky place."

"I know." Chloe nodded, eyeing the thin fog coming up from the ground. Then again, it'd been raining all night so maybe it was just the water evaporating from the earth, but there was a sensation about the place that didn't sit right with her. "Whatever happened to those couples, it happened here."

Dean frowned and turned to look at her. "How do you know that?"

She tore her gaze from the countless apple trees to him. "I don't know." Without waiting for his reaction, Chloe tossed him the EMF meter and stepped into the apple grove, eyes vigilant around her as she felt an odd _zing_ race through her body as her feet touched the soil of the orchard.

_What is going ON with me_?

Sensing Dean walking besides her gave Chloe courage as she continued to let her instincts guide her, feeling that _zing_ she'd experienced when she'd first touched the soil seem to _tug_ at her towards a certain direction. The blonde gulped slightly as she felt dizzy and a little sick at her stomach, not understanding the odd, hyper feeling she had just beneath the surface of her skin.

"Where are we going?" Dean asked softly beside her, EMF in hand, watching as the lights grew more furious with each step they took.

"I don't know." She then stopped when she felt her stomach churn, and she placed a hand to her stomach and looked up, breath catching in her throat at what her footsteps had brought her to.

Dean noticed her stop and turned to look at her in worry before turning to see what she was looking at and made a face. "What the hell?"

Sharing a look, they walked together towards the human-sized scarecrow situated in what Chloe could only suppose was the middle of the orchard.

It was unlike any scarecrow Chloe had ever seen. Not only was it life-sized, but it had a leathered face with gaping holes for eyes and a sewed up mouth. It wore old 'drifters' clothing, had terrifyingly human-like looking hair and a worn out hat on its head. In its hand it held a sharp yet old and worn sickle, and to top things off it was suspended in the air in a way that made it look as if it'd been crucified.

Chloe hugged herself to fend off the sudden cold she felt as she and Dean stopped right in front of the scarecrow and looked up into the two black holes that should have had eyes.

"_Dude_," Dean made a face at the thing, lifting the EMF towards the scarecrow and watching as all the lights stayed completely red, not even blinking anymore from how strong the reading it was picking up. "You're _fugly_."

Chloe nodded her agreement.

"What's _that_?"

She turned to her partner. "What's what?"

"His right arm." Dean frowned, turning off the EMF meter and putting it away in his pocket before looking around and grabbing a ladder from where it rested against a tree close by. Taking the ladder to the post that held the scarecrow in the air, Dean climbed up, eyeing the thing warily.

"What are you doing?" Chloe shivered, not liking Dean so close and personal with that thing.

"His arm." Dean gently pulled up part of the tattered sleeve covering the arm that held the sickle. "It's got a _tat_."

Chloe's eyes widened and she took a couple of steps backwards. "Dean? Come down, _now_."

"Hold on a second, I have to be sure." Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out the poster of Vince Parker. Unfolding the paper he looked at Vince's tattoo and then at the tattoo on the same arm of the scarecrow. "It's the same one."

"Oh _God_."

Climbing down the ladder and returning it to the tree it'd been resting on, Dean turned to her and grabbed her arm. "Let's get the hell outta here."

She nodded and let him lead her back to the car, her stomach in knots. "What's going on Dean? What is that thing? What did it do to Vince Parker? Why does it have his tat?"

"I know as much about that thing as I do about how you knew it was there." Dean's voice was tight. "First Sammy and now _you_? Chloe, what the hell is going _on_?"

"I don't _know_." She whispered as they stepped onto the highway once more, the orchard to their back. They headed towards where the Impala waited on them. "Dean, honest to _God_ that I'm just as confused as you are."

Dean went and rested against the Impala, looking up at the sky with a deep sigh before turning to look at her. "It's got to be somehow connected to the demon."

"What?" Chloe asked, confused.

"Chloe, too many things are just 'happening' now for it to be a coincidence." He announced, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. "First dad disappears, then Jess gets killed in the same way and by the same thing that killed mom, then all of a suddenly Sammy starts having visions of things that are going to happen before they do." He paused. "Well, he's only had _two_ dreams, one was of Jess dying and the other was of you." He frowned. "I wonder if there' a connection in that somehow."

"Dean, I don't get what you're trying to tell me." Chloe hated feeling so _stupid_.

"Let me finish Chloe." Dean announced before continuing. "As I said, Sammy starts getting these freakzoid visions about things that are going to happen before they do, dad says that he's found mom's killer—a _demon_, and you suddenly are getting all ESP-y on me? Not only _that_, but dad said that he knows for certain that you're somehow connected to all of this, and we know that when you were eight your mom was possessed by a demon that was intent on taking you to some mystery person."

Chloe didn't like her life being analyzed so coldly, and yet she understood the necessity and kept quiet.

"My guess is that the demon possessing your mother was going to take you to a demon of a higher rank." His hazel eyes bored into her green ones. "And dad finds out that some _demon_ killed mom? Chloe, what if the demon that started this whole thing isn't somehow connected to what happened to you when you where eight?"

"Why? Dean, it makes no sense, I'm nothing special. No demon would want me this badly." Chloe didn't like where Dean was getting to with his reasoning. She didn't like it at all. "We wouldn't even have found the orchard if you hadn't accidentally left the EMF on. We would have driven right by it to the Interstate."

"Chloe, what if the demon looking for you is the one possessing your mom?" Dean asked softly, not looking her in the face any more. "What if she's still alive and is the host of this thing and it's looking for you out of some twisted motherly thing?"

"Impossible." Chloe whispered. "Your mother said that what was after me was a _he_. The demon in my mom was a female-or the demon equivalent of a female."

Dean seemed to consider this and sighed in frustration, shaking his head. "I need you to tell me _exactly_ what led you to that freaky scarecrow, okay? Did you dream about that orchard before?"

"No, Dean, I'm not a _psychic_ or anything like that. I'm not like Sammy, I don't see things before they happen, believe me, if I did those ghosts would have _never_ gotten me alone in that room in Roosevelt." Chloe tried to get him to understand, but it was hard when even _she_ couldn't understand it at all. "I kinda—I kinda felt _connected_ when I touched the soil."

Dean frowned darkly. "Define _connected_."

"I don't _know_," Chloe growled, running fingers through her hair in frustration. "_Connected_, like I do with Sam and you."

Both adults froze as those words left her mouth.

_Oh God, that was so awkward of me to say!_

Dean finally broke the silence, taking in a deep breath. "Connected, huh?"

"Yeah." She nodded, looking at the tires of the Impala. "Connected."

"Well, I think we should head back to the town and do some serious digging. I'll talk to the townspeople and I want you safely in the motel checking to see if you can find any information on that tatted freak in the orchard, okay?" He frowned. "Connected with Sam and I? No problem. Connected with something like that? Uh-uh. We're figuring this out and then we're calling dad and he's going to have to give us some more answers than he's been doing so far."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"So, nothing yet on our little friend?" Dean asked later on the phone.

Chloe was on the bed, eyes hurting her from all the reading she'd been doing. "No, nothing. I've gotten a lot of crap information on things like this-example A-alien scouts."

"Alien scouts?" Dean snorted. "Are you _joking_ me?"

"No, someone called _IFreakWithHotAlienBabes_ says that scarecrows are actually alien devices meant to silently scout areas for the perfect time to nab people to experiment with and all of that." Chloe rolled her eyes. "He also has written a very long pornographic account about his many sexual adventures with aliens of every kind, so I really wouldn't take his advice to heart."

"_Great_."

"What about you? Any luck with the locals?"

"Well, I talked to that chick Emily from the gas station and she said that the scarecrow has always been in the orchard—that it freaks her out—and that she doesn't know who it belongs to. She also said that this place seems _blessed_."

"Blessed?" Chloe sat up in bed. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Dean sighed. "She started going on and on about how the towns all around are losing their crops and suffering from other stuff but Burkitsville is like some frickin' paradise."

"Hmmm." Chloe frowned, something about that was nagging at her, as if she should remember something but couldn't.

"Oh, and guess what? A _couple_ are here. They're supposedly having _car _troubles, but check this out, they didn't even know they had it until someone _kindly_ pointed it out to them." He snorted. "Apparently the 'reparations' won't be finished until _sundown_, but I know a thing or two about cars and the problem the mechanic says the car has? It's fixed _easily_ in a little over an hour tops."

Dean sounded _very_ annoyed. "You should have seen how that miserable old dude from the diner was treating them. Like they were royalty. Gave them all this large amount of food—and _pie_—on the house and just kept asking them if they wanted more."

"They're fattening them up like anyone would a sacrificial lamb." Chloe whispered.

"My thoughts exactly."

"Dean, you've got to warn those people!"

"I tried, gorgeous, but they thought I was a nut job and the guy at the diner kicked me out—_without even giving me my pie_!" He sighed. "He even sicked the _sheriff_ on me, and I got off with only a warning and not getting escorted out of town because of _you_."

"Me?" Chloe blinked.

"Apparently word flies like wild fire in this place, everyone feels so _sorry_ for the _nice young woman_ who's so heartbroken over the loss of her best friend." Dean sounded mocking. "Look, how I see it is that that couple's car is going to break down by the orchard tonight and we're going to have to be around to stop it from happening, okay?"

"Okay." She nodded, clearing her throat nervously. This would be her second hunt, her first without Sam, and this scarecrow scared her _tons_ more than the ghosts at Roosevelt, but she was going to be brave because she was all that Dean had. "No problem. I'll pack up our stuff and be ready by the time you come 'round for me."

"That's my girl." Dean sounded proud before hanging up.

Chloe paused, looking at the phone in surprise, before shaking her head and hurrying to get everything ready. They had a couple to save.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Hours later found them back in the motel room, sleeping tiredly on the bed they shared. Dean was dead to the world since it'd been two nights since he'd slept, and Chloe was surprised at how comfortable she was sleeping in a bed with him. It'd been as comfortable as it had been to sleep with Sam that one night, and the blonde didn't understand it.

She wasn't this sort of girl.

If it'd been any other guy—even Clark—Chloe would have felt a bit self-conscious sleeping in the same bed with, and yet with Sam and Dean it seemed _natural_.

She'd slept curled in his embrace, waking up with her head resting over his heart, her leg entwined with his, and his arm around her as he continued to sleep peacefully. Chloe'd smiled softly, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart before losing herself to thought.

This _comfort_ she felt with Dean and Sam, this _thing_, it was the result of that _connection_ she'd let slip to the elder Winchester before. She felt safe, trusting, comforted and completely at ease with the boys-something that was hard for her. And the boys obviously felt the same way around her.

And Sam and Dean weren't people to trust others easily either.

And yet they seemed to fit perfectly in this little puzzle box, not one piece missing or extra.

Just as it _should_ be.

Dean murmured something in his sleep about pie—honestly, the guy was _obsessed_ with pies and M&Ms!—and pulled her closer, breathing a contented breath in his sleep.

Chloe snuggled closer, closing her eyes, and would have drifted off to sleep again if it hadn't been for her cellular ringing.

_Dean needs his rest; he hasn't slept for two nights_.

Groaning, Chloe turned slightly and reached for the phone, flipping the lid and placing it to her ear without looking at the caller I.D. "Chloe Sullivan." She whispered, trying not to wake Dean up but unable to move since he had a death grip on her, even in sleep.

"Hey Chlo." Sam said, sounding tired. "I'm still at the bus station, the first bus to California doesn't leave until today at 5 in the evening."

"No wonder you sound tired." She whispered. "You spent the whole evening and night at the bus station, huh?"

"Not an experience I ever want to repeat." Sam admitted with a sigh. "So how's everything going with the hunt?"

"Oh, it's going." Chloe continued to whisper.

"Why are you whispering?" The younger Winchester asked, sounding amused.

"Don't want to wake up Dean." Chloe admitted, turning in Dean's arm so that her back was pressed against him. "He hasn't been sleeping well, and after last night we're both pooped-and that's that we're far from finishing with this."

"Last night?" Sam sounded worried. "What happened? Did something go wrong with the hunt? What exactly are you hunting?"

So Chloe filled him in on everything that'd happened since the last time they'd spoken.

"The scarecrow came down from his _cross_?" Sam finally asked in surprise when she finished telling him of what'd happened the night before.

"He was scary just hanging there, Sam, but seeing him come after us with that sickle in his hand-it was terrifying." Chloe admitted, feeling like a wimp but needing to tell _someone_ how she'd felt. "Thankfully we got the couple out on time without one scratch on them-though I think they'll probably need counseling after what happened."

"Something must be animating it—the scarecrow I mean." Sam announced after a couple minutes thought. "A spirit maybe."

"No, it's more than a spirit." Chloe shook her head. "It's a god—a pagan god any way."

"Pagan god?" Sam sounded surprised. "Why would you say that?"

"Well, the whole thing always bothered me from day one." Chloe admitted, trying to sit up but Dean's grip on her was tight. "Something kept nagging at me until I was there last night and saw it alive for the first time and then for some reason everything just _clicked_ in my head."

"Ok…" Sam prompted. "What clicked?"

"The yearly cycle of its killings and the fact that the victims are always a couple—a man and a woman—it's like some sort of fertility rite." She scratched her head, still slightly sleepy. "And according to Dean, the locals were treating the couple like a king and queen, fattening them like a Christmas turkey."

"The last meal." Sam announced as it all finally made sense. "It was a tradition to give it to all of the sacrificial victims before their deaths."

"Exactly." She nodded, yawning. "I think this ritual sacrifice is done to appease some pagan god."

"So the god posses the scarecrow-."

"-and the scarecrow takes the victims." Chloe finished the sentence, yawning once more. She was _really_ tired. "It would explain _why_ Burkistville is so freakily prosperous when all the towns around it are falling apart. They give the god a sacrifice each year and in turn he gives them another year of good harvest and no sicknesses."

"Do you know which god you're dealing with?" He sounded worried.

"No, not yet."

"If you figure out which one it is you'll find a way to kill it."

"I figured that out on my own, Einstein." She laughed softly as to not wake up a snoring Dean. "I'm going to hit the computer again and try my searches now that I know we're dealing with a god. _Dean_ wanted to hit the local college to talk with a professor there, but I told him it was a bad idea. We don't know which townspeople are a part of this or not, and us fishing for clues on some pagan god might alert the wrong people of what we're doing."

"That's a smart-."

But Sam couldn't finish this sentence because Dean's sleepy murmur grabbed both of their attention.

"Gorgeous, you're a sheet hog." He announced as he groaned and stretched, yawning deeply as he slowly awakened.

"I am _so_ not a sheet hog you _pillow_ hog." Chloe laughed at him.

"You weren't using that pillow." Dean murmured, continuing to yawn as he detangled himself from her and sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

"Of _course_ I wasn't—_you_ were using it!" She snorted.

Dean opened his mouth to say something before he realized that she was on the phone. "Is it Sammy?"

She nodded and handed the brother the phone before getting out of bed to go and use the bathroom. By the time she got back Dean had ended the call and placed her phone back on the nightstand.

"You two made your peaces?" She asked, picking up her laptop and turning it on, ready to begin her searching again now that Dean was awake.

"We're not the next contestants for _Jerry Springer_ if that's what you're asking." Dean rose from the bed in all of his muscle-shirt, boxer glory.

Chloe shook her head at him, plopping down on the bed. "I'm glad."

Dean paused on his way to the bathroom. "Me too." And with that he entered the small unit and closed the door behind him.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Hey everyone! So, Dean and Chloe are getting closer! And what's this happening with Chloe? What's this connection she has with the boys? **

**REVIEW!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_So, I'm enjoying writing this so much it's ridiculous. LOL. _

_You know, the more I think things over, the more I'm thinking maybe __**Lois**__ is gonna end up with a __**girl**__ (there are a number of kick-ass girls in SPN). Not sure yet, but I'm thinking that maybe that's what's gonna happen._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"Dean-o, start building a shrine in my honor." Chloe preened an hour later when he returned with lunch.

Kicking the door shut behind him, Dean grinned, hands filled with paper bags. "You found our god?"

"Yep." She grinned, extremely proud. "At first he was giving me all sorts of problems in the finding department but then I got to thinking. Indiana isn't exactly known for its pagan worship." Patting next to her on the bed, she continued when he sat down. "So I thought, what if this god is _imported_?"

"Imported? Like _wine_?" Dean asked, eyebrow raised.

"Funny." She made a face at him, grabbing the burger he offered her and taking a large bite, enjoying the taste, swallowing, and then continuing. "So my idea was that this god may be imported like the pilgrims when they brought their religion to the United States."

"So this area was settled by immigrants?" Dean asked, taking a big bite out of _his_ burger as well.

"Bingo. I ran a check on Burkitsville and found out that it was mostly colonized by people from Northern Europe-mostly Scandinavians."

"So what about those pagan gods?"

She made a face. "Let me tell you from now that there are _hundreds_ of Norse gods and goddesses. The _good_ thing is that I knew the particular that _this_ god we were searching for lived in orchards, right? So I ran that through the check and _viola_."

Chloe grinned as she turned the laptop slightly so that he could see an old drawing of a scarecrow looking thing hanging on a cross in the middle of an orchard.

"Gorgeous, I'm gonna marry you some day." Dean grinned in excitement. "What type of pagan orchard god is this?"

"Well, it's not an orchard god _per se_." Chloe replied, munching on another bite of her burger. "It's a Vanir."

"Vanir?" Dean made a face. "What the hell is a Vanir?"

"The Vanir were the Norse gods of protection and prosperity who kept settlements safe from harm."

"You don't say." Dean snorted, shaking his head at the picture in disgust as everything fell into place. "What else?"

"Well," Chloe waited until swallowing before continuing. "The villagers would build effigies of the Vanir in the fields and other villages would practice human sacrifice, one male and one female."

"Apparently the whole of Burkitsville is stuck in the medieval times." Dean growled in disgust, suddenly losing his appetite. "Anything on how we get rid of the bastard?"

"According to the site I found this on, this particular Vanir derives its energy from a sacred tree. Which makes sense considering that it's in an orchard." Chloe explained. "The pagans thought all sorts of things were infused with magic, and I'm starting to believe them."

"So what would happen if this scared tree was torched?" Dean asked, putting his half eaten burger away. "Do you think it would kill the god?"

"It isn't exactly _stated_ that way in the website," Chloe confessed. "But how I see it, this sacred tree is to the Vanir as remains are for an angry spirit. Get rid of their hold on earth and their energies should be cancelled out."

"So it's not a sure thing, but it's the closest thing to a solution that we have." Dean summarized.

"In a nutshell." Chloe nodded.

Dean sighed. "Okay, we have to find that sacred tree and torch it to the ground."

"It's gonna be hard-that's a large orchard." Chloe reasoned as she stood. "And how will we know _which_ is the sacred tree?"

Dean paused, thinking that question over. "We're just gonna have to burn the whole place down then-just to be sure."

Just then the door flew open and they were looking at the business end of the sheriff's gun.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Emily Jorgeson had always been a little's suspicious of everything after moving to Burkitsville to live with her aunt and uncle at the age of 13 after her parent's death. They'd been visiting her dad's brother, her uncle Harley, and his wife Stacie, and Emily really didn't know what happened. She just went to sleep one night and when she woke up her Aunt Stacie had held her tight, crying, and said that there'd been an accident.

Emily had moved in with her aunt and uncle and they'd raised her well, and while life was amazingly idyllic in Burkitsville, Emily couldn't help but think that around this time of the year the people became, uh, for lack of a better word—_edgy_.

And now they were acting downright _suspicious._

First she'd seen Sheriff Johnson break into the newcomer's room in the Sunny Side Up Inn, and instead of taking the two to jail-he'd taken them to the cellar behind her aunt and uncle's store. The sheriff had then locked up the Winchesters in the cellar and had headed straight to the back of _Scotty's_ _Diner_, and Emily had followed him, surprised to find her aunt, uncle, Scotty and a few other of the townspeople huddled together, looking nervous.

It'd been hard to get close enough to hear and yet not be seen, but something in Emily's bones told her that something bad was going down, and she wanted to know for once what it was.

"You understand, right Harley?" Scotty whispered to her uncle, looking around nervously. "All of us here-it's our responsibility to protect the town."

"I understand better than all of you could." Uncle Harley shook his head, eyes filled with pain. "I'm the one that gives them directions. _I'm_ the one that sends them down to the orchard."

Emily narrowed her eyes at the mention of the orchard. That was the second time today she'd heard of that creepy place, and she began to wonder if the Winchesters hadn't been 'arrested' because of something in that orchard.

And what had her uncle _meant_ that he'd 'sent' people there?

Why would he?

"Harley, _please_." Sherriff Johnson sounded annoyed and yet a little doubtful himself.

"We all close our doors—look the other way—pretend we can't hear the _screams_." Harley closed his eyes tightly. "But this is different. You're talking about tying them down there and giving them no hope whatsoever of escape! _This_ is murder!"

"It's angry at us and it's _their_ fault!" Aunt Stacie whispered harshly. "_They_ weren't the chosen victims, Harley, if they hadn't interfered and taken the human sacrifices from it _none _of this would have happened."

Emily's eyes widened and she plastered her hands to her mouth to silence her gasp of horror. _Human sacrifices?_ What in the world was her aunt _talking_ about?

"Already the trees are beginning to die." Aunt Stacie continued on, trying to persuade her husband. "Tonight's the seventh night of the cycle. It's our _last chance_."

"It just-," Harley sighed. "It just feels like the night Layla and Mark-."

Emily's head shot up at that. What _about_ her parents?

"We _had_ to do that, Harley." Scotty whispered, looking torn. "We all loved Mark, and sure, Layla was a dear, but he grew up here, he _knew_ what we did, and he told you that he was going to tell the world if we didn't stop. We _had_ to get rid of him and Layla—he'd told her the truth that very night."

"It was only fitting that it all happened during the time of the sacrifice." Sheriff Johnson nodded his head. "It was a sign. Mark and Layla tried to destroy this town and we saved it. Now we're going to save this town again even if we have to tie the Winchesters up to the same trees we tied your brother and his wife to all those years ago."

Emily couldn't hear anything else after that, her world collapsed on her as she ran away, thankfully still unnoticed by the group huddled in the back of _Scotty's Diner_.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Sam sat in the bus terminal, tapping his foot impatiently against the tiled floor he'd had to sleep on the night before. Many thoughts and questions and worries raced in his mind as he looked at his computer bag and listened to the sound of beeping as he tried calling Chloe and Dean for what must have been the thirtieth time in three hours.

They weren't answering.

He breathed in a deep breath and closed his eyes, telling himself to relax, that there was nothing the matter. Maybe they were in the middle of a hunt, maybe Dean was out doing something and forgotten his cell at the motel and Chloe was bathing and couldn't hear the phones ringing loudly, constantly—for three straight hours.

Or maybe they were banging their eyes out and were just ignoring him.

Taking in a _deeper_ breath, Sam gulped and pulled his phone from his ear when Chloe's phone went to voicemail again after ringing out.

_'Hey! This is Chloe Sullivan's phone. Obviously I'm either not available or just plain ignoring you at the moment, so leave your name, number and a brief message—or if I'm angry at you you better beg and plead for forgiveness—and I'll get back to you.' _

BEEP!

He disconnected and tried Dean's number again, but his call went _straight_ to voicemail this time.

_'This is Dean. You know what to do.'_

BEEP!

Sam gave a little growl and closed his eyes tightly, trying to calm down, telling himself that he was over-reacting, that there was _no reason_ for him to be acting like this.

_Sure_, Chloe and Dean had shared a bed, but so had _Sam_ and Chloe, and nothing had happened between _them_.

_But Dean isn't known for being a gentleman_.

Sam's hand banged down on the table he was sitting at in the small diner in the bus station at the thought.

God, he had _no right_ to be furious and jealous and _hurt_ at the thought of Chloe and Dean, and yet he was.

And yet he _was._

Not only was there the possibility that something had happened between Chloe and Dean during his absence-but they also seemed to be doing just _fine_ without him. Sam felt so utterly _useless_. Chloe had picked up the full burden of the researching and had done _marvelously_ considering that she was new to hunting-at least the _supernatural_. And Dean, used to hunting alone, was dealing with the pagan god they had on their hands.

It was like Chloe and Dean were the _super hunting duo_ and Sam had only been a third wheel. He wasn't _necessary_. He wasn't _needed_. They were doing _better than fine_ on their own.

He felt so _hurt_ it was unbelievable.

Trying Chloe again, Sam sighed when it rang out once more.

_What if they __**are**__ in trouble?_ Sam asked himself. _What if I'm wallowing in self pity and they're in danger and need me?_

"Hey!" Meg Masters, the blonde he'd met while hitchhiking the day before and whom he'd seen again at the bus station, arrived by his side. She was going to California as well, and so they'd spent the time waiting for the bus by getting to know each other. "Our bus just arrived. Let's go board and find some seats together."

"I can't." Sam sighed, making up his mind and getting up, pulling on his duffle bag and his laptop bag. "I gotta go."

The smile left her pixie-like face. "Go where?"

"Burkitsville." He turned to leave.

Meg grabbed his arm, causing him to look back at her.

"_Sam_—_wait._" She looked so confused and sad. "Why aren't you going to Cali anymore? You've spent a whole _day_ waiting here and now that the bus has arrived you're just _taking off_?"

They _had_ become somewhat friendly during their waiting time together, so Sam decided to explain the situation as best as he could. "I've been trying to get in contact with Chloe and my brother for the last three hours but none of them are picking up. Something must have happened to them."

At the mention of Chloe's name, Meg frowned slightly and looked down at her high heels. "Well, maybe they just turned off their phones. Maybe they're busy. Heck," she looked up at him again and tried to smile. "I ignore people on the phone all the time when they're calling me and I'm doing something I feel is important."

"Chloe wouldn't ignore me." Of that Sam was certain. "And neither would _Dean_." He looked behind him at the door, wanting to be out of there as fast as he could but feeling bad to just leave Meg like this. "I think they might be in trouble."

_Or screwing_.

"What kind of trouble?"

"I can't really explain right now." Sam continued to look out the door. "I'm sorry—look, I don't want you to miss the bus."

"_But_," Meg persisted. "I don't _understand_." She took in a deep breath. "You're running back to your overbearing brother and that girl you hardly even _know_? _Why_? Because they aren't answering their _phones_? Sam! I—I _know_ you a have a crush on her," she sighed and looked away. "It's obvious in the way you talked about her, but who's to say that the reason they aren't answering their phones isn't because they're _screwing_?"

He winced as her last words seemed to echo his thoughts.

"_Sam_," Meg whispered, eyes pleading. "_Come. _Come with _me_ to California."

"I can't." Sam relied truthfully, realizing for the first time that one of the reasons why he'd felt so miserable since leaving Dean and Chloe behind. It was because he missed them, missed the odd relationship the three of them shared. Missed how after a hunt Chloe would fuss over them, looking over their bruises and cleaning their cuts while Dean would pretend he was made of steel and unable to truly be hurt.

Sam missed the researching with Chloe, throwing ideas back and forth and hi-fiving in victory when they finally nailed the bastard they were hunting. Missed sharing that look of 'yeah, we're good' with Dean once they'd finally _killed_ whatever mofo they were after. Missed the nights the three of them would celebrate afterwards in whatever bar was closest, drinking and laughing and listening to Chloe as she continued to tell them about her amazing childhood.

He missed playing the 'death-glare any guy that so much as _looks_ at Chloe' game with Dean-the game Chloe had no idea the Winchester brothers played regularly and were becoming champions at.

Sam chuckled softly as he thought about him and Dean. They didn't mind sharing Chloe's attention with each other; it was some unspoken rule amongst the brothers that she was theirs to protect, theirs to entertain, theirs to tease, and theirs to ogle whenever her attention was elsewhere or her back was turned.

But _God_, they hated having to share her with anyone else.

"I should never have left." It surprised him to hear his own voice speaking those words. "I should never have come here."

Meg looked as if he'd slapped her. "_Why not_?"

"Because," Sam looked at her, realization zinging inside of him. "They're my family, they're all I've got left in this world, and I have to let go of the past or I'm going to lose the only chance I'll ever have at a happy future."

With that he turned and left the bus station, looking around, wondering how to get to Burkitsville as fast as he could.

_Let me try them again._

Ringing Chloe's number, Sam's heart leapt with relief when it was answered.

But then the person who spoke _wasn't Chloe_.

"Hello?" A young girl's voice asked in a whisper.

"Who is _this_?" Sam narrowed his eyes. "Why are you answering Chloe's phone?"

"Look, I can't talk now, but you _need_ to get to Burkitsville, _whoever_ you are." The girl on the other end of the line hissed. "I didn't know, I _swear_ I didn't know!"

"Know _what_?" Sam asked, his heart hurting him with fear. "What's going on? Where are Chloe and Dean?"

"They took them out to the orchard." The girl sniffled. "That's how I got to break in and find their phones. _Look_, I don't care how you do it, but whoever you are—your friends, Mrs. And Mr. Winchester, they're going to be sacrificed to some pagan god if you don't stop it! I know it's crazy and I know-."

"I need directions, _now_." Sam's voice was hard as he hurried to the first car outside of the bus station and hurriedly broke into it. It would seem those hotwiring lessons his father had made sure he and Dean learn as kids was going to come in hand after all.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"You don't have a plan, do you?" Chloe whispered as night descended upon them. She'd grown tired of fighting the binds that had her tied to one of the larger apple trees in the orchard, the skin around her wrists bruised and bleeding slightly from the effort she'd been making to escape in vain for _hours_.

"I'm working on it." Dean answered, eyes on the darkness around them.

"That's what you said when they tied us up here and left us for scarecrow meat _hours_ ago." Chloe growled slightly before sighing and closing her eyes. "I always knew I was going to die in a different, unusual way. But I always thought it'd be meteor-related—_never_ did the idea of a Norse god offing me _ever_ run through my head."

Dean turned his head and looked at her as best as he could given the way he'd been tied to a tree slightly ahead of her. "You're not going to die, gorgeous. I'm not letting that happen."

"So, that '_plan'_ you've been pretending to work on for the last couple of hours-_that's_ gonna save us?" She snarked because otherwise she'd cry, and there was _no way_ she'd die crying.

"Well Miss _Smartass_, I don't see _you_ coming up with any bright ideas." He threw back at her.

"_I'm_ the _newbie_ to all of this, what exactly is _your_ excuse?"

Dean chuckled despite the situation.

"Honestly, I'm thinking that hunting mightn't be for me after all." Chloe was rambling and she knew it. "My first hunting trip I get accosted by an asylum-full of _sharing_ ghosts-and my second one I get tied up to a tree to feed the town's pet pagan god."

"Can you see it, by the way? The scarecrow?" Dean asked, frowning again. "Can you see any movement at all? Is it feeding time?"

"Valid question Watson." Chloe tried to turn to look behind them, where a little away was the scarecrow and its cross.

"For the last time, _you're_ Watson."

"Sherlock would have come up with a solution to our problems during the last _endless_ hours." She quipped, straining on her binds before sighing and sitting back. "I can't see anything. I'm tied at an odd angle and everything's too dark."

Suddenly the sound of footsteps could be heard coming towards them.

Chloe closed her eyes tightly. She did _not_ want to see that fugly, leather face when it came to eat her.

She could hear Dean struggling desperately against his binds.

"_Chloe_? _Dean_?"

Chloe's eyes flew open the same second the sound of Dean's struggling stopped. "Sammy?" She blinked. "_Sammy!_ We're over here!"

Sam appeared from behind them, followed by none other than a terrified looking Emily Jorgeson.

"I've never been happier to see anyone in my _life_." Dean sighed in relief as Sam hurried to untie him and Emily worked on Chloe's binds. Each had a knife and cut through the rope, setting the would-be-sacrificial-victims free.

The brothers gave a manly embrace before pulling apart and Sam turned to Chloe, eyes raking over her worriedly before grabbing onto her shirt and pulling her into his arms, hugging her tightly.

Chloe closed her eyes, feeling safe.

"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but why is Emily here, why are _you_ here, and how did you know _we_ were here?" Dean asked. "And how did you get here so quickly?"

Emily looked like she was going to cry. "I—I didn't know what they were doing until I saw Sheriff Johnson taking you guys and I overheard everything." She looked around her nervously. "I found out where they were keeping your stuff, and when they went to bring you here I got them and I was going to call every number in your phones when Sam called. I told him what was happening and, yeah, that's it."

"I stole a car and got to Burkistville as fast as I could, then we found the Impala and drove it here." Sam finished the tale.

"Thank _God_ you guys arrived here before that scarecrow came alive." Dean announced.

Chloe pulled away from Sam when she felt a _zing_ jolt up her body from the ground, her eyes going to the cross situation several feet away from them…the now _empty cross_. "Guys?"

Emily noticed what Chloe did and her face went ashen. "Oh my god, we have to get out of here!"

The men turned, saw what the women were looking at, and shared a look before nodding. "Okay, let's all calm down and stay close together." Dean finally spoke. "We have a relative safety in numbers." He turned to Chloe "That sacred tree…"

"Dean, it'll be impossible to find it in this darkness." Chloe reasoned, looking around her nervously.

"Sacred tree?" Sam and Emily asked at the same time in the same tone.

"Yeah, it's the life force for this _thing_." Dean explained rapidly. "We torch the fucker and the scarecrow should die."

"_Should_ being the operative word here." Chloe reminded Dean.

"Yeah." He agreed. "But it's a _should_ I'm happy to try."

"Not on _our_ watch." Suddenly flashlights were turned on all around them, revealing townsfolk surrounded them, flashlights and guns trained on them.

"_Emily_?" Harley Jorgeson blinked in horror when he saw his niece amongst the intended sacrifices. "What are you doing here?"

"_Em_?" Stacie, standing by his side, could only get those two letters out.

"How could you two?" Emily whispered, tears in her eyes. "How could you let this happen? How could you _do_ this?"

"Honey, come over here with your uncle and I." Stacie held out her hand. "Come where it's safe."

"_No_." The young redhead glared at her aunt. "I am _not_ going with you! You're _murderers!_"

"Sweetheart, we _had_ to do this." Harley seemed hurt. "We had to think of the best of the town—of our _people_. Sacrifices have always had to be made for the betterment of society. Only in Burkitsville those sacrifices are more _literal_ than in other places in America."

"Sacrifices like my _parents?"_ Emily sobbed, losing a bit of the control she was obviously trying to keep on her emotions. "Did you tie my mom and dad up to the same trees you tied the Winchesters to? Huh?"

Harley winced.

Chloe's eyes widened as she suddenly understood _why_ Emily had betrayed her family in helping them.

"My parents _died_ trying to stop what you all are doing." Emily whispered. "And if I have to die here doing the same thing, then so _be it_."

"It mightn't be such a bad idea." The sheriff announced. "They robbed _it_ of its true victims, so maybe it will be happier with us if we give him an extra set of people, to make up for last night."

Chloe couldn't believe it. These were people who'd known Emily from _childhood_ and they would easily offer her up to _appease_ this creature?

"It'll be over quickly, I promise you." Harley finally told his niece.

"You _sonofabitch_." Dean growled from behind Chloe.

Chloe noticed Sam looking around at the many townspeople who were surrounding them, keeping them there at gunpoint.

They were too many.

There was no way they could take them on.

_We're not going to escape_.

The sound of a roar echoed throughout the orchard and everybody looked around them trying to find the source of the sound.

Chloe's heart skipped a beat.

_He's here_.

"Chlo? Gorgeous?" Dean murmured from behind her. "How's that _connection_? Is it connected right now?"

She missed the confused look Sam sent them. "I—I don't know."

"Emily," Harley continued to talk to his niece. "You have to let him take you. You have to-."

Chloe's gaze went to the shadows that suddenly shifted behind Harley and her mouth fell open in a soundless scream when the scarecrow seemed to materialize right in front of her eyes, watching her as it rammed its sickle into Harley Jorgeson's back, the tip of it protruding out of his chest-right through his heart.

Stacie and Emily screamed at the same time as the scarecrow grabbed Stacie by her throat, dragging her body back against it, disappearing into the rising fog.

The town's people all took off once they saw the scarecrow, all running away as fast as they could.

All that remained were four shaken young adults.

"We have gasoline in the car, don't we?" Dean asked Sam, grabbing Chloe's arm as they turned and hurried in the direction of the highway.

"Yeah." Sam nodded as he took up the back of the group, making sure that they weren't attacked from behind.

"_Good_." Dean announced with determination. "We're going to burn this _whole orchard_ down to the fucking ground."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

A few hours and a completely burnt orchard later, Chloe, Dean and Sam watched as Emily got on the bus to Boston. Apparently she had some cousins there and she would be living with them for a while.

"So," Dean turned to Sam from where he was leaning against the Impala. "Are we dropping you off somewhere?"

Chloe's heart hurt as she turned to look at Sam, she'd been wondering that question as well.

"Nah." Sam shook his head, smiling slightly. "You two are just going to have to put up with me again."

Chloe's face broke out in a huge grin and she threw herself at Sam, hugging him. "I think we can handle that."

Sam hugged her back with a smile.

Dean grinned as well, obviously very pleased with his brother's decision. "What changed your mind?"

"I didn't change my mind." Sam explained slowly. "I still want to find dad and I _still_ think you're a jerk."

Chloe snorted in laughter.

Dean grinned proudly, not bothering to deny the accusation.

"But I realized something." Sam whispered, holding Chloe closer and smiling at his brother. "I realized that Jess and mom are gone. Dad's only God knows where. You and Chloe-you're all I have left." He cleared his throat. "So if we're going to do this, we're going to do it together."

"I like the sound of that." Chloe whispered before pulling away and smiling up into his face.

Dean looked at his brother seriously before speaking. "Hug me, Sam." He said with fake tears in his eyes, voice hilariously 'choked'. "That was so _beautiful_."

Chloe laughed as Sam gave his brother a mock-glare.

"You should be kissing my ass, bro." Sam announced as they turned to the Impala and got in, Dean in the driver's seat, Chloe in the back, and Sam across from Dean. "You would have been a _dead man_ if it hadn't been for me."

"_Please_." Dean snorted as he put his keys in the ignition and started the car. "I had a _plan_. Gorgeous and I would have made it out alright."

Chloe groaned from the backseat. "Don't talk to me about that non-plan of yours, Winchester!"

"What?" Dean asked innocently as he backed out of the parking lot and onto the street. "I was _working_ on it!"

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

That same night, driving in the opposite direction of the brothers and Chloe in a beat up, old van, was Meg Masters. Instead of taking the bus, she'd left the station after Sam had and resumed hitchhiking. Now she rode in the late of the night with a Caucasian male who'd drunk too many beers and kept looking at her lecherously from the corner of his eye.

"So where to, pretty lady?" He sneered.

"How about you pull over?" She suggested, giving him a smile he returned as he quickly maneuvered his beat up van off of the highway and into the bushes on the side of the road.

Once the van was parked, Meg opened up her backpack and pulled out a large silver goblet, resting it on her lap.

The driver watched her with interest. "What's that?"

"I got to make a call." Meg replied casually as her hand dipped into the goblet and went around the small, sharp object hidden within.

"I got a cell you can use."

"It's not that kind of call." And with a rapidness and agility that just didn't seem human, Meg lashed out with the silver blade concealed inside of the goblet and sliced open his throat.

The man gurgled, his head leaning back as blood poured out from his throat.

Meg brought the goblet under the large, ugly gash and collected his blood as it, only pulling away once it was filled enough. She dipped her finger in the blood and circled the inside of the goblet in a counter clock-wise direction, whispering an incantation in Latin.

Finally pulling out her finger, she listened to the voice that only she could hear before making a sound of impatience.

"But I don't understand!" Meg closed her eyes for a second, trying to regain control over her temper. "I had the younger Winchester brat hanging off of my every word—he would have gone with me too if he hadn't been so damned worried about his brother. Why did you want me to let him go?"

She listened to the response and narrowed her eyes. "I could have taken him on easily! Him _and_ his little hunter of a brother. I could have taken the _both_ at the same time! They're no match for me. It'd have been _easy_."

The voice spoke to her once more.

Meg looked out of the window, a muscle jumping erratically in her cheek. "I could have taken care of them and gotten a hold of the package they protect. I could have delivered it to you _tonight_ even." She looked back down at the goblet in annoyed confusion when she heard the response to that. "But I don't _understand_. Isn't that what you want? The girl?"

"No, I'd never question you. _Never." _Meg blinked in surprise. "But I just can't understand why you are willing to let them continue to keep the package when I could have delivered her to you _now_."

The voice was stern.

"Yes." She sighed, shaking her head. "Yes."

It continued to tell her what her next move should be.

Meg listened and sighed, accepting the new plan and her role in it. "It shall be done as you wish, father."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Yay! I really wanted to write this chapter!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe groaned as she reached for the phone that was blaring loudly by the side of her bed. The boys and her had driven as far away from Burkitsville, Indiana as they could, taking turns driving and sleeping in the back of the Impala before they'd stopped for food and crashed in the first motel they could find.

The only room they'd been able to get had only had one bed, so the boys were sleeping on the ground.

Reaching for her cellular, Chloe brought it to her ear. "Hello?" She yawned, hoping that this was important.

"_Chloe_?" The voice on the other end of the line sniffled heartbrokenly.

Chloe jolted up into a sitting position in the bed. "Lois? What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's the General." Lois whispered, her voice breaking with emotion. "Oh Chloe—he's _dead_!"

"What?" Chloe gasped in horror, bringing a hand to her heart. "What happened?"

"I don't _know_!" Lois cried. "I was out partying with Malcolm, Lucy was home with those bitches of her friends, and when I came back they were downstairs playing that truth or dare game we used to play, you remember?"

"Yeah." Chloe felt her heart breaking as she heard the desperation and _pain_ in her cousin's voice.

"So I go upstairs and as I'm going to my room I pass the bathroom and the floor outside is filled with _blood_." Hiccupping with sobs, it took a minute for Lois to calm down enough to speak again. "I opened the bathroom door and there he was, dead on the ground, all his blood seeping into the hallway."

"What happened? Was he attacked?" Chloe asked, horrified that her cousin had had to witness such a thing.

"_I don't know_." Those three words sounded tortured. "Lucy and her friends were right below and they didn't hear anything-and Chloe, his _eyes_…"

Chloe narrowed her eyes, frowning. "What about his eyes?"

"_They weren't_ _there_." Lois' voice broke pitifully. "There were only empty sockets that were like _geysers_. The blood was still spewing out when I found him…"

"Oh my _god_." Chloe's hand went to her mouth.

"I need you here, baby Cuz." Lois whispered.

"I'm coming." Chloe nodded, getting out of bed and maneuvering over the sleeping bodies of the Winchester brothers on the ground as she headed towards the bathroom. "I'll be there as soon as possible."

"_Thank you_."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The boys had been less than happy with the news. While they understood Lois' pain, their first prerogative was Chloe's safety, and the fact that Chloe's uncle had died in such a _bizarre_ way suddenly, at _this specific time_, well, they believed that it could very well be the demon somehow trying to draw Chloe out from the relative safety she'd had while on the road with them.

Chloe wouldn't hear any of it, and after a lot of arguing she'd told them that she was going to go to Metropolis with or _without_ them. That'd seemed to do it, as the brothers grudgingly announced that she wasn't going anywhere without them and that if she was going to 'recklessly put herself in danger' (Dean's words), that they were going to be there to 'watch her back'.

So they'd driven non-stop towards Metropolis, and had gotten there in record time, only stopping at the first motel they could find to bathe and change their clothes before heading to Chloe's uncle's house.

"So your uncle was in the army." Dean reiterated the information Chloe had given them about her family as they sat in the Impala outside of the Lane residence.

"Retired general." Chloe nodded. "Well, he was _officially_ retired, but he never really retired in his mind. Brought up Lois as if she was one of his cadets. Lucy escaped the treatment because she got accepted into this elite school overseas when she was a lot younger. Lois on the other hand grew up like she was in the army."

"Sounds like us." Dean snorted, giving his brother a sideways glance before clearing his throat. "How was their relationship? Is there anything Sam and I should avoid saying?"

"It was very strained." Chloe admitted, fixing her hair in the rearview mirror. "Your father trained you while growing up because he wanted you two to be able to protect yourselves from the evil out there. Uncle Sam? He just was plain _mean_. When younger he'd make Lois go to bed without food if she didn't complete drills properly or so forth." Chloe growled. "She learnt quickly to follow the chain of command."

Sam muttered something that had Dean turning and glaring at him in the backseat.

Chloe rolled her eyes at this. "Boys, now is _not_ the time to get in one of your famous bitching sessions."

The boys blinked and looked at her in surprise to hear the word 'bitch' come from her lips.

Sam smiled apologetically.

Dean grinned broadly. "We're rubbing off on you gorgeous."

"God save me." Chloe gasped in mock-horror, a hand over her heart before flashing the brothers a cheeky grin and exiting the car, closing the door behind her and making her way to the front door. By the time she'd rung the doorbell Sam and Dean were on each side of her, and when the door opened, Chloe's heart broken when she saw her distraught cousin, Lois Lane.

"_Chloe_!" The pretty brunette cried before throwing herself into the blonde's arms and breaking down crying.

"Oh _Lois_." Chloe held her sobbing cousin close before finally pulling away when the crying had died down.

"God, I'm such a mess." Lois snorted with self-hate, wiping at her eyes madly. "I haven't even let you guys inside and I'm already attacking you."

"Don't be silly." Chloe smiled softly before turning to the boys behind her. "Lois, I'd like you to meet Dean and Sam Winchester."

Lois continued to wipe at her eyes as she smiled shakily at them. "Right. The hunks. You know, I really wanted to meet you two-never thought it'd be in this situation though."

Dean nodded silently, hands in the pockets of his jacket uneasily at so much show of emotion.

Sam glared at his brother before reaching out and shaking her hand. "We're really sorry for your loss."

"_Thank you_." Lois whispered, voice choked before she stepped inside. "Come on in."

They did as told and Chloe spoke to Lois, waving slightly to a few of the people in the house mourning. "Could the doctors determine what exactly _happened _to Uncle Sam?"

"Stroke." Lois snorted.

Dean made a face from behind her. "You don't think it was a stroke?"

"I'm _certain_ it wasn't." Lois paused and turned to look at the brothers once more. "I've heard of strokes paralyzing people and things like that, but I've _never_ heard of a stroke that caused someone's _eyes to explode_."

Sam's eyes widened.

Chloe gasped. "Oh my god."

Lois cleared her throat, looking like she was desperately trying not to cry in front of them, to be brave. "Plus, there were no symptoms leading up to…to what happened." She wiped at a stubborn tear that made its way down her cheek. "I looked up on the 'Net when the doctors told me he'd died of a stroke, but the General _never_ had any of the symptoms like dizziness or headaches. As a matter of fact, he'd just had his yearly and the doctor had even said he was impressed how _healthy_ he was."

The brothers shared a look.

Chloe knew exactly what it meant.

'_We need to see that body_.'

"And the thing is-," Lois turned to Chloe. "That _Lucy_ blames herself for everything." The elder Lane girl closed her eyes for a second, took in a deep breath, opened her eyes, and continued. "She says that right before this all happened her friends and her were playing Truth and Dare, right?"

"Yeah, I remember you told me that on the phone." Chloe nodded her head. "But what does that have to do with your father's death?"

"Well, according to Lucy she was dared to go into the bathroom and say Bloody Mary three times into the mirror." Lois sighed. "She saw the General right afterwards because he needed to use the bathroom, so she went downstairs and like ten minutes later I come up and find him in the bathroom _without his eyes_." Lois's voice broke. "Didn't the legend of Bloody Mary say that she took the eyes of her victims?"

Dean looked at Lois oddly. "You think it was Bloody Mary."

"I know it sounds _crazy_," Lois whispered. "If I didn't have someone like Chloe for a cousin I would think so too-but Chloe's told me all about those meteor freaks and how homicidal and psychotic they are and the _amazing_ powers they have. Metropolis isn't that far from Smallville. Who's to say that one of those freaks didn't come here and decided that it likes to play the part of Bloody Mary or something?"

_Or what if it is THE Bloody Mary?_

But the General hadn't _said_ Bloody Mary…so why would the ghost take out _his_ eyes and not _Lucy's_?

"Chloe?"

Everyone turned as they saw a man in his fifties pause as he looked at them.

Chloe's heart stopped and her heart filled with tears. "_Daddy_." Breaking away from Lois she rushed into her father's arms and hugged him tightly. "I missed you."

"Oh _Chloe_." Gabe Sullivan hugged his daughter and kissed the top of her hair. "It's so nice to see you again. I've been so worried."

Chloe pulled back and smiled into his face before turning and pointing to Dean and Sam, who suddenly looked like they were being shown the business end of a thousand guns. "Dad, I want you to meet Sam and Dean Winchester. They're the boys I've been traveling with these past months."

Gabe's gaze hardened slightly as he allowed his daughter to lead him to the men he wouldn't have wanted his daughter spending months on end with. Sure, he was certain that they had redeeming qualities to them, but Clark had told him about what _he_ thought of the Winchesters, and Gabe valued Clark's opinion greatly.

"Dean, Sam," Chloe smiled, oblivious to the tension between her father and the Winchesters. "I'd like you to meet my father, Gabe Sullivan."

Dean gulped slightly, extending his hand and shaking Gabe's. "It's a pleasure to meet you sir, gor—_Chloe_ has always spoken a lot about you."

Sam then shook Gabe's hand as well. "Sir."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"Is it my idea or does he _totally_ hate us?" Dean asked his brother as they went up the stairs to find the bathroom that General Sam Lane died in.

"He hates us." Sam sighed as they walked down the hall. "Not that you can really blame him. He obviously doesn't really believe in the Supernatural _or_ Chloe's reasons to be traveling with us-he probably thinks we've somehow brainwashed her into believing that so that we can keep her on the road with us and use her as our own personal sex slave."

"If _only_." Dean muttered under his breath.

Sam slapped his bother on the back of his head. "You see? _That_ kinda attitude ain't going to endear us to dear ol' daddy."

"I've never _had_ to 'endear' myself to _anyone's_ 'daddy'." Dean grumbled as they found the bathroom and entered it, seeing how the blood had stained the tiles, probably permanently. "Not even _my own_."

Sam shook his head and turned his attention to the problem at hand. "The Bloody Mary legend." He shook his head. "Did dad ever find any evidence that it was the real thing?"

"Not that _I_ know of." Dean admitted as he entered the bathroom and looked around.

"I mean," Sam bent to the ground and ran his fingers over the smooth tiles, forever stained with the blood of Sam Lane. "Everywhere else, _all over the country_, kids are playing Bloody Mary and as far as we know nobody's _died_ from it."

"Well," Dean looked out of the bathroom window. "Maybe everywhere else it's just a story but here it's actually happening."

"The place where the legend began?" Sam followed his brother until they were both standing in front of the bathroom mirror.

Dean shrugged, opening the bathroom cabinet and looking within.

"But according to the legend whoever says-," Sam paused when he realized that when Dean had opened the cabinet door he'd turned the mirror towards him. The brunet quickly closed the cabinet door and turned the mirror away before continuing. "The person who says _you-know-what_ gets it, but _here-_."

"The General's attacked instead of his daughter." Dean nodded. "Yeah-I've never heard anything like that before." He paused. "_Still_, the guy _did_ die _right in front of a mirror_. And Lois is right, the way the legend goes-." He took a look at the mirror before looking away. "_You-know-who_ scratches your eyes out."

"It's worth checking into." Sam concluded with a shake of his head. "If this is really the spirit of Bloody Mary then-."

"I _knew_ it."

Both Winchester turned in surprise to see Lois Lane in the doorway. She looked stronger than she had when they'd first met her, and damned determined as well. "I _knew_ Chloe was with you guys for a reason. You're Hunters of the Weird just like her, aren't you?"

The brothers looked at each other in confusion.

"Ever since my cousin was a kid she'd been hunting up stories of the weird and proving that they're real." Lois announced, stepping into the bathroom with them, folding her arms over her chest. "When she told me about you guys I had a feeling, and now I know its true. You hunt the weird. You believe me-you believe that something _weird_ happened here."

Dean opened his mouth to deny _everything_.

"Yes, but it's not meteor-rock related." Sam cut him to the chase. "We think it's _supernatural_."

Dean gave his brother a horrified look.

Lois' eyes widened. "Supernatural? Like, ghosts and _demons_ kinda supernatural? _That_'s what Chloe has been hunting these last couple of months?"

Sam nodded.

Lois frowned slightly. "You're telling me that all these months my cousin has been hunting ghosts and things-and that the General could have been killed by _the_ Bloody Mary?"

"Look," Dean sighed. "I _know_ it's hard to take in all at once but-."

"I want to help." Lois interrupted, raising and hand to silence them as they opened their mouths. "Listens hunks, this was _my_ father who was killed and _my_ cousin who works and travels with you. I _am_ going to find out what killed him and get back at it, with or _without_ your help."

Dean and Sam shared a look.

"I think it's safe to say that gorgeous got her bull-headedness from her mom's side of the family." The sandy-blonde Winchester announced.

Lois smiled. "Great. The people should leave in an hour or two. We'll get together then and go over what we have to do." And with that, she left the boys in the bathroom.

Dean turned to Sam. "It's obvious that Chloe got her _bossiness_ from her mother's side of the family too."

"_I heard that_!" Lois' voice called back as she descended the stairs.

Dean winced. "Dude, that chick is freaky."

Sam couldn't help it, he laughed.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The people (including Gabe and Lois' boyfriend Malcolm) had left a couple of hours ago and Lois had sat everyone down in the living room and Chloe had spilled everything to her cousin. She was glad that Lucy was upstairs with her friends because Chloe really didn't think it was best to let the distraught girl realize that it might actually be her fault that her father was dead.

"A _demon_ is after you?" Lois whispered in horror as she looked at her cousin.

Chloe nodded. "That's what Mr. Winchester believes. He thinks it's the same one that killed his wife and Sam's girlfriend."

"Why would it be after you?" Lois asked.

Dean and Sam motioned for Chloe to continue, and the blonde told her cousin the truth about the day Moira Sullivan had supposedly left them.

"She was _possessed_?" Lois gasped, hand to her heart. "Oh my _god_ Chloe! I can't believe you didn't tell someone about this!"

"Well, I didn't realize she'd been possessed at the time, I only figured that out a couple of months ago." Chloe admitted softly. "Dean thinks that the demon possessing my mom was going to take me to the demon looking for me now."

"Which means its high in the demonic hierarchy if it had others of its kind working for it." Sam contributed to the conversation.

Lois' cellular rung, and she looked at it. "It's Malcolm, give me a minute." Getting up, she answered the phone and walked away.

Chloe stood. "I'm going to get something to drink."

She headed towards the kitchen and froze when she saw a very familiar someone standing in front of the open refrigerator. "_Bart_?"

Closing the door in a blink of an eye, Bart Allen, also known as Impulse, smiled impishly at her. "Chloelicious, long time no see."

"Bart!" Chloe grinned, and in seconds he was hugging her. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was doing a food run for the boys and who would I see while rounding the bend but my _chiquitita bonita_ and two strangers getting into a _real_ old-fashioned car?"

Chloe's grin grew brighter as she thought of what Dean's reaction would be to hearing his beloved Impala being described that way. "So you decided to follow me over and raid my cousin's fridge?"

Bart scratched the back of his head and ducked his gaze. "Well, actually, I found out where you were, then I went to see _El Gran Jefe_ and he sent me over to keep an eye on you."

"Oliver sent you to spy on me?" Chloe raised an eyebrow at that, placing her hands on her hips in surprise. "Really?"

"He wanted to know why you were in Metropolis."

"What is _he_ doing in Metropolis?" Chloe countered.

Bart grinned. "Oh, _mamacita_, you want in? It'd be like the olden days!"

"Given the fact that the _olden days_ were only a couple of months ago, I'm going to accuse you of exaggeration." Chloe teased before frowning. "While I'd love to help, I actually am on a very special and personal job right now, so I won't be able to."

Bart's face fell. "Bummer. It hasn't been the same with you."

"I miss you guys too." Chloe whispered.

The fastest being alive nodded his understanding. "Anything you want me to tell _El Jefe_ and the others?"

"To take care of themselves," Chloe responded without even having to think about it. "That I miss them horribly-and for them to _try_ and keep safe while I'm not there to mother their asses."

Bart looked at her oddly before shaking his head. "Those dudes taking care of you, Chloelicious?" His face was suddenly a stone mask. "Boy Scout didn't like them much and if they aren't treating you right I'll-."

Chloe smiled fondly at him. "Bart, they're treating me perfectly. I'm fine and couldn't be safer."

"_Chloe_?" Sam could be heard coming close.

Chloe turned around in time to see Dean and Sam enter the kitchen, looking around in confusion.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Who were you talking to?"

Chloe turned and looked behind her to find Bart gone. She smiled and returned her attention to the brothers, who were looking at her oddly. "An old friend-I'll tell you about it later."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**There you go. The next chapter.**

**Review?**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_It's interesting how my readers' decisions vary. Interestingly enough, __**John and Ruby**__ are the ones who people like the most for Lois, followed by Jo. Just thought you'd be interested in seeing how varied your opinions on Lois' love interest are._

_One reviewer mentioned Lois' boyfriend "Malcolm" and why Lois would need a love interest if he's in the story-but he's not a regular character…as you will realize by the end of the chapter._

_That being said…enjoy!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

They hadn't been ready for the call.

The day had been spent with the boys going to examine General Lane's body in the morgue and get the opinion of the mortician's assistant ("It was like his eyes popped out or exploded or just _melted_ or something") while the girls had hit the Metropolis Library to see if they could go through the archives and find out if Bloody Mary had originated there and what her real name was.

Luck hadn't been on their side, as the computers in Archives had all been out, but the girls had tried not to complain _much_ and gotten down to work. Chloe immersed herself in the many volumes of hardcopies in the archive, but she kept on getting distracted by Lois, who kept looking at her cellular every couple of minutes with unease.

"Okay, that's it." The blonde cousin announced as she stopped trying to pay attention to what she was reading. "What is it?"

Lois looked up from the screen of her cellular, eyes wide and confused. "Huh?"

"You." Chloe pointed out helpfully. "Are you expecting some important call or something? You keep looking at that phone-."

"Oh." Lois interrupted, sighing and resting the cellular on the surface of the table. "I'm just-worried."

"Why?" Chloe asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

"Before we separated and came here I got a phone call from Malcolm." Lois admitted, cracking her knuckles in a childhood nervous gesture. "I kinda let him know what I thought happened to the General, and Malcolm laughed." She closed her eyes, seeming so _tired_. "And then he said he was in front of his mirror at home and he _said it_."

"Said it?" Chloe blinked, confused.

"He said _her name—three times_." Lois whispered, keeping her eyes closed. "He said that he wanted to show me that I was just half-crazed with grief and trying to find a 'culprit to lay my anger on' when there wasn't any. He said it was time I grew up and he was going to help me to do it."

Chloe stewed silently in her seat. Her cousin's boyfriend was a real dick! Lois was going through a traumatic time right now and she needed someone who was a support—not someone who made her feel like a paranoid freak! Especially when Lois was most probably right in her suspicions!

"My only reassurance is that Lucy was the one who said _her_ name and she didn't get hurt." Lois admitted before shaking her hands and running her hands over her face and through her hair. "Okay, enough moping, Lois Lane, you are tougher than this. You can do this." Shaking her head, she opened her eyes and smiled sadly at Chloe. "So, changing the subject _very_ unsubtly-what's up with you and the hunks?"

"Huh?" Chloe asked, tilting her head to the side as she contemplated her pretty cousin. "What about us?"

"How far has this relationship gotten?" Lois Lane wanted to know, a lecherous expression tilting her lips at the corner. "Is it still at the desperate wanting stage or has it exploded into hot three-way action?"

Chloe choked on her saliva.

Lois smiled knowingly. "I see, you're still at the desperate wanting stage." She reached over and tapped Chloe's back reassuringly. "Don't worry Cuz, Dean nor Sam look like people to wait _too_ long for something they want—especially Dean."

The blonde's eyes were wide and somehow she was still choking, as she looked at her cousin in horror, cheeks flushing red. "What the _hell_ are you talking about?" She tore her green gaze from her cousin's smirking face and looked back down at the book in front of her. "There is _nothing_ going on between Dean and me—Sam and me-and _definitely_ nothing going on between Dean, Sam and I!"

"You know," Lois sounded damned amused. "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt."

Chloe raised an eyebrow as she turned to look at her cousin again. "Preschool much?"

"If it gets the point across."

Chloe ignored that and looked at her watch. "I wonder what's taking the boys so long. It's actually kinda late."

"I'm sure they're fine." The brunette reassured her cousin.

"Yeah," Chloe nodded in agreement. "They probably decided to try and stay away as long as they could after they called and I told them the computers were out. The bastards."

Lois and Chloe smiled at each other at that.

"You know, I don't know how you do this every day." Lois sighed, looking back at her book. "We're looking I don't know _how_ many years back for a Mary who died in front of a mirror?"

"Well, there are millions of legends about Bloody Mary." Chloe explained mechanically as she returned to reading the large volume in front of her, yawning slightly. "In some she was murdered, in others she committed suicide-but all of the legends have a few facts that coincide-like the fact that she died in front of a mirror and her name was Mary, also that her spirit comes back and takes the eyes out of the victims who say her name three times in a mirror."

"Yeah. I got that part." Lois shook her head, reemerging herself into her volume as well. "What I'm saying is that I don't get how you do this every day." She paused for a second. "It's got to be tiring—all of this research."

"I'm used to it." Chloe grinned sheepishly. "Ever since I was young and hunting up a story I've researched-sometimes I think that my obsession with becoming a reporter and researching things was because I was somehow being prepared to become a hunter one day."

Lois looked up from her book. "You mean you don't miss the Planet at all?"

Chloe smiled whimsically. "Of course I do, and sometimes I miss working there full-time, but Perry lets me freelance whenever I have a story for them between hunts, so it's not like I left everything behind completely."

Lois smiled as she saw the look on her cousin's face. "You're happy."

The blonde nodded. "Yeah, insane huh? I have something evil supposedly after me, I'm far from everything I ever loved, I live out of seedy little motel rooms and everything I eat lately is _really_ deep-fried, I have to be constantly playing referee to those Winchesters and we're constantly in danger—but I've never been happier."

"Yeah, I've noticed." Lois nodded, tapping her pencil against the book. "So, some day in the future, you think I might be able to go on a hunt with you guys?"

Chloe blinked, surprised. "You'd want to?"

"Hell yeah." Lois nodded, serious. "My father might have been a right mean bastard when he wanted to be, but he didn't deserve to go that way. No one does." Her voice wavered for a second, but then she'd cleared her throat and the sound was gone. "What you guys do—you're heroes."

Chloe chuckled, gaze falling to the surface. "Well, _heroes_ might be pushing it a _bit_-."

"No." Lois shook her head. "You guys kill evil and save the innocent. And you don't get paid or even recognized for what you do. That sounds like heroes to me."

Embarrassed, Chloe kept her gaze on the table and kept silent.

Lois opened her mouth to say more but jerked when she heard her cellular ringing.

Grabbing the Nokia from where she'd left it, the brunette looked at the screen and frowned when she saw the number. "It's Mal's mom." Shaking her head, she pressed the 'speak' button and brought the phone to her ear. "Hey Perla, how are you doing?"

Chloe watched as Lois' face paled in horror and suddenly she dropped her cellular from her frozen hands, eyes wide, breath erratic. "Lois?"

"It's Mal." Lois whispered, eyes wide and vacant. "_He's dead_."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**The Next Day**

Chloe would have gone in with a surprisingly strong and brave Lois, and the boys, to investigate Mal's bedroom-where he'd died (his eyes gone)-but she'd seen something, or rather someone, that'd caused her to stop the moment she'd gotten down from the Impala.

Looking around to make sure that no one was looking at her around the street, and sure that the boys and Lois were so into their investigation in the house to her right that they wouldn't be keeping an eye out on her through the window, Chloe crossed the street and rounded the corner of the building two houses away.

Her smile was amused as she came face to face with the person who'd apparently tracked them to Mal's house—the person who was leaning against the side of the building, arms folded over his chest in what would look like a careless position to anyone else.

"I thought I told Bart to tell you that I was okay." Chloe couldn't keep the amused smile off of her face as she too crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at him. "Really Ollie, I'm being taken good care of."

Oliver Queen raised an eyebrow at that as he lazily pulled his dark shades from his face, observing her, examining her quite obviously. "I don't know, Sidekick. You look thinner."

_Thinner_? Chloe looked down at herself with incredulity. _How in the world can I look THINNER with all that greasy, fattening food I've had to eat the past months?_

When she looked up she responded to his tender smile by eliminating the few steps between them and throwing her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, sighing and breathing in his calming scent as he hugged her back.

"I've missed you, Sidekick." Ollie whispered in her ear.

"I missed you too, Ollie." Burying her face in his expensive shirt, Chloe breathed in his scent once more, feeling a wave of nostalgia wash over her, leaving her feeling a little homesick and melancholy. "You mind if we stay like this a little longer?"

His chuckle reverberated from his body to hers as he rested his chin on the top of her head. "Not a problem at all."

"Good—cuz I wasn't letting go." She mumbled into his shirt.

"What are you guys still doing over here in Metropolis?" Oliver asked suddenly.

"My uncle Sam died—as Bart probably already told you, and apparently it's related to our kind of work." Chloe admitted freely, trusting him completely. "Lois—his daughter—is helping us, and her boyfriend just died the same way her father did."

"And what way is that?"

"Extreme shock, eyeballs being yanked out of their sockets, and massive internal bleeding."

Oliver flinched. "Who do you think did it?"

"Bloody Mary."

The young billionaire blinked and pulled away from Chloe enough to look at her in her eyes. "Bloody Mary?" He asked, eyes wide. "As in _the_ Bloody Mary?"

"I know, shocking and disturbing, huh?" Chloe nodded, looking up into his shocked face. "We didn't even think the legend was real until now—and that's that this is our line of work."

Oliver winched slightly. "You've gotten yourself deep into their world—haven't you, Sidekick? You—you keep saying _we_ and _our_ like you belong there."

Chloe hesitated, wondering how to word this properly. "Well, I feel like it's my world now. I don't know how long it'll take us to find the thing that's after me and send it back to hell—if we ever do. I guess I just have decided to face things and learn to accept and like what I'm doing—which I am."

"Clark said-."

"Clark is a big protective oaf." Chloe grinned tenderly at the mention of her best friend. "You know that he didn't trust me with _you_ when _we_ began to work together. He's just not used to letting anyone else take care of me, and now Lana isn't even a diversion any more."

The blonde billionaire nodded his head at that. "He still misses her. Boy Scout tries to play it off as nothing, but everyone can see that he's taking Lang's leaving pretty harshly."

"I guessed as much." Chloe admitted with a shake of her head. "Lana emailed me the other day, said she needed to get away. Clark's keeping the secret from her just ruined everything. At least she didn't give into that attraction she had for Lex."

Oliver shuddered. "Now _that_ would have killed Clark."

Chloe nodded her agreement. "How _is_ our dear Luthor Jr. doing lately?"

Oliver frowned, looking around them as if expecting someone to be spying on them. Then again, that could very well be happening. "Things are looking ugly, Chloe. I'm kinda glad that you're not involved with this. Luthor is getting more and more deranged and I'm actually frightened of what it is he's become."

"That bad?" She whispered in concern.

Oliver nodded. "That's why I myself am not in on this mission." He frowned. "I want to be—to hell with my identity being revealed—but the boys don't want me taking the chance. I'm the only one in the league—other than you—who Lex doesn't know the identity of."

"And he always _has_ had a special hatred towards the Green Arrow." Chloe nodded in understanding. "You're doing the right thing you know, waiting it out. According to Clark Lex is already suspecting you anyway."

Oliver nodded a confirmation. "Hopefully Boy Scout going around in my uniform while I attend _very_ publicized banquets and stuff will do what we hope and direct Luthor's gaze elsewhere."

"_Chloe_?"

Turning when she heard Sam's voice calling her from the direction of the Impala, Chloe bit down on her bottom lip, wondering what to do. She didn't know if the JL wanted the boys to know about them, and she didn't want to betray their trust. But how could she explain to Sam why she was so far from the car when she said she'd stay behind as a lookout in case Mal's mom came home before planned?

"_Chloe_?" Sam's voice sounded deeper and slightly more agitated.

Feeling a hand on her lower back, she turned her head slightly to see Oliver with his shades back on, leading her out of their hiding space and her eyes flew to the Impala in time to see Sam notice them.

He looked relieved, then surprised, then his eyes went cold and hard with suspicion, his hand going subtly to where he hid his pistol in the waistband of his pants. "Who the hell are you?"

"It's okay Sam, this is a friend of mine, Oliver." Chloe reached of with her hand, telling him without words that the gun wasn't needed. "I saw him while in the car and we started chatting. That's all."

Sam's eyes were narrowed and on Oliver. "What a coincidence that he would just _happen_ to be here at the same time you were. Your 'friends' always seem to be in the same place as you at the most convenient times."

"It was no coincidence at all, I assure you." Oliver announced emotionlessly. "I trailed you three from the hotel room you spent the night in, to the Lane residence, to here." His voice deepened slightly. "I'm disappointed, actually. Sidekick assured me that she was being well protected, but you didn't realize that you were being followed and I wasn't even trying to be stealthy about it."

Something darkened in Sam's eyes.

_"Ollie_." Chloe groaned, wondering if every time one of her friends from the League met the Winchesters if they'd get into a pissing contest. First Clark and now _Ollie_?

"No, don't." Oliver's voice was restrained, his hand sliding up from the small of her back to around her shoulders. "It's hard enough for me to let you travel with virtual strangers and let people I don't know take care of my Sidekick, but when I _know_ that they're embarrassingly _lax_ in this job and putting you in danger I won't play the nice guy."

Chloe sighed, knowing that Oliver was just trying to take care of her like he was used to doing—but insulting Sam and Dean wasn't the way to do this! "Dean and Sam _are_ taking care of me, Ollie, I'm _safe_ with them."

Sam had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the whole conversation, but he finally spoke. "Look, I don't know _who_ the hell you are, or who you think you are either, but Dean and I are taking care of Chloe the best we can."

"Which isn't much, is it?" Oliver snapped back.

"Guys!" Chloe got in between them, despite the fact that she didn't think they'd get physical. "Enough is enough!" She pointed a finger at Oliver warningly. "You-cool down and back down. This isn't your fight, I'm staying with Sam and Dean and they're taking good care of me." She then turned to Sam. "_You_-what are you doing down here?"

Sam blinked at the tiny, furious woman. "I came to find the black light we keep in the trunk. We think that there's a message written by Mary in the back of the mirror Malcolm was killed in front of."

"Okay then, go get the black light and go back upstairs. We don't have much time before Mal's mom comes back home."

"I'm not leaving you alone with him." Sam said in determination.

Chloe growled in frustration. "Oh for heaven's sake, _go_ already! It's not like Ollie's gonna kidnap me while you're gone!"

"I wouldn't make that promise if I were you." Oliver announced, not helping the situation any better as Sam tensed even more and his hand went subtly towards his gun once more.

"If you _think _I'm gonna let some _stranger_ take Chloe away…" the brunet warned, his voice dark and savage, his eyes promising pain and torture.

Chloe's eyes widened in surprise as she saw the usual lovable and smiling Sam turn into a feral animal right before her eyes, looking like a sleek cougar ready to defend its territory from an invading outsider.

Oliver's arm around Chloe's shoulder tightened before he shook his head. "You willing to kill for her, Winchester?"

"And _die_ for her if it came to that."

Oliver paused, and suddenly all hostility inside of him vanished as he relaxed against Chloe. "That's all I can really ask of you, isn't it?"

Sam didn't respond.

"Sam? Light." Chloe motioned towards the Impala.

Sam didn't budge, didn't even acknowledge her words, his eyes and Oliver's connected.

For some reason Oliver chuckled sardonically, shaking his head again. "You can go. I'm not going to kidnap her while you're gone. When this is over and Chloe returns with me, you'll know in advance and be there to say goodbye."

And for some reason that darkness in Sam's eyes grew nearly black before he turned and silently stalked towards the trunk, opening it, grabbing the black light, slamming the trunk closed and storming towards Mal's house.

Chloe was confused as she watched him go, every muscle of his body tense. "Why is he so angry?"

Oliver chuckled but it wasn't with amusement. "You really have no idea, huh?"

Chloe turned her back on the house and looked up at Oliver. "No idea of what?"

Instead of answering her, Oliver looked at her face in silence before smiling slightly and bringing his hand to cup her cheek. "I've missed you, Sidekick."

Chloe couldn't help but smile right back up at him. "You've already said that, Ollie."

"I have, haven't I?" He agreed.

Smile going deeper in amusement, Chloe leaned her cheek harder into his hand, enjoying the feel of his thumb as it caressed her skin. "Yeah, but it's nice to hear so I won't complain much."

His face lit up with amusement.

"You should probably go," Chloe sighed as she pulled away.

"Yeah." Oliver nodded in agreement before tapping the tip of her nose with his finger tenderly. "I'm going to be keeping an eye on you."

She rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless. "Okay boss."

Oliver then engulfed her in a bone-crushing hug. "Come back soon, Sidekick."

She didn't answer, just hugged him back and pressed a kiss on his cheek when he pulled away. "Take care of yourself and the others while I'm gone."

He nodded before looking at her oddly and leaning his forehead against hers.

The sound of a door slamming shut caused them both to turn towards Mal's house, seeing Lois peeking out from behind the Winchesters' shoulders in interest. Sam and Dean though were glaring at Oliver.

Ignoring them, Oliver pressed his lips softly against Chloe's forehead. "If you need anything, call me whenever, okay?"

She nodded and watched as he turned and walked towards the motorcycle parked a little ways back.

"Who was that?" Lois asked as she arrived next to Chloe by the Impala, watching as Ollie zoomed away on his latest model, super hot motorcycle.

"One of the most important people in my life." Watching Oliver until he disappeared around he bend, Chloe turned to look at Sam and Dean. "Did you find anything?"

Dean was looking at the bend in which Ollie had just disappeared.

Sam spoke. "A name and a date, along with a handprint."

Feeling the tension in the morning air, Chloe looked at her watch. "Okay then, Lois, is Lucy still spending the night with the friends whose parents came for the funeral?"

Lois nodded. Lucy's foreign friends had told their parents about the funeral and they'd arrived in Metropolis to take their children. Lucy hadn't thought twice before leaving her elder sister alone in the house their father had been murdered in, and going to stay with her friends.

"We'll go to your house then." Chloe decided. "In the car I'll check for this person and see how he or she is tied into Bloody Mary, Mal, and his death."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"How _could_ he? How could _they_?" Lois Lane cried heartbrokenly on her bed.

Chloe hugged her cousin close and cried too at the pain she could feel radiating from the elder girl, but one couldn't blame her. Not only had two very important men in her life died days apart from the other-but she'd found out some dark secrets they'd kept from her.

"_Why_?" Lois sobbed. "_Why would he DO that_?"

"I don't know, Lo." Chloe's voice was choked with emotion.

Before they'd even gotten to Lois' home Chloe had pulled up the death report of the child's name that Bloody Mary had written on the back of Mal's mirror. _Connor McDonald_ had been in a fatal hit and run and died the date the ghost had left.

At first no one could find the connection until Chloe had read out loud the description of the black truck that'd run the child over and raced away from the scene of the crime-and Lois had recognized it as Mal's beloved Tundra.

They'd found their connection, and yet everyone was praying that it was only a fluke for Lois' sake as they rushed upstairs with the black light, searching the mirror in which General Sam Lane had died in front of-and found the name Ellen Lane, along with the date she'd supposedly died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

So here Chloe and Lois were in the elder girl's bedroom, the blonde trying to console the brunette and knowing deep inside that there was nothing she could do to make her better.

"_Why_?" Lois continued to beg for an answer.

"I don't know." Chloe cried alongside her cousin. "I don't know."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Hey everyone! Here's the update! I finally brought Ollie into the story! I enjoy him so much, lol.**

**Review?**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_I love my reviewers! Thanks for all of your encouragements and compliments and excitement when it comes to each chapter! It really is an inspiration! I'm sorry for how slow its going with the—as one reviewer put—__**schlean**__—but as another reviewer said, Chloe isn't exactly a person to jump into a relationship—especially with two brothers! So I'm going to have to take this slower than I usually do—although there __**will**__ be some __**chlam**__ and some __**chlean**__ in the __**near**__ future!_

_**I wanted to write this chapter for so long! I'm so excited because I'm not very good at mystery or suspense, but I'm really trying to do that for this story concerning Chloe. So, that said, this chapter adds another annoyingly vague and confusing clue to Chloe's past and how it affects her future right now…**_

_Warning: This goes a little different than it did in the episode!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe and Lois returned from Mal's funeral, both dressed in black and both exhausted. They found the boys where they'd left them that morning-on the sofa-but the many files that they'd had around them were gone, and only one was placed neatly on the coffee table in front of them.

Lucy hadn't come back to the house, so Lois had asked Chloe, Sam and Dean to stay with her in the large house. They'd left the motel happily and made themselves at home as the four of them searched the countless archives, trying to find out _who_ their Bloody Mary really was.

"How are you guys?" Sam asked as he looked up from his laptop's screen when they came in and sat down.

"Tired." Lois whispered, still wearing her large, dark shades, obviously refusing to let the boys see how red and puffy her eyes were from how much she'd cried.

"That was one long-ass service." Dean muttered to himself as he looked at his watch.

"Malcolm was captain of the football team, captain of the debate team, volunteered for a lot of charity projects, and worked at the old-people's homes most Wednesdays and Fridays. He was loved by _everyone_." Lois choked, clearing her throat and looking away, glad for the shades that hid the tears welling up in her eyes once more. "I just don't understand how someone who did so much good could have run over a five year old and kept going."

She also couldn't understand how her father could have had something to do with her mother's death-but no one mentioned that.

Chloe looked at Sam and Dean and frowned when she realized that they were dressed differently than they had when the girls had left. "Did you guys go out somewhere?"

There was a moment's pause.

After Ollie's visit things had become somewhat tense between the three of them. Dean and Sam wanted to know who Chloe's 'friends' were and why they were always just 'showing up' at the most suspicious of times, and the blonde understood them, she did, but she wasn't going to betray the trust of her JL friends. So that left the trio in a tense standoff.

"We found Mary." Sam finally spoke, causing both girls to look at him in surprise as he reached over and passed Lois the file on the coffee table. "Her name was Mary Matheson, and she was an aspiring actress."

Chloe leaned closer to Lois as she looked over the information they'd gathered on Mary Matheson, wincing when they saw the crime-scene pictures.

"She was found brutally murdered in front of her family's mirror, her eyes taken out while she was alive, and get this." Dean went to them and pointed to the mirror behind the dead body of Mary Matheson. "See the letters 'Tr' written in blood and her bloody handprint on the mirror next to her body?"

"She was trying to write out the name of her killer." Chloe whispered, feeling a surge of pity for the girl who had once been so very pretty.

"That's what the retired cop we went to talk to thought as well." Sam nodded and he leaned forwards in his seat. "He said that there was this cosmetic surgeon in Mary's circles, a man named Trevor Walters, who was friends with her. And in Mary's diary she said she was seeing a married man she only referred to by the initials T.W."

"Trevor Walters." Lois concluded with disgust as she pulled the picture of a party in which Mary and Trevor were attending, laughing with some friends, the woman young and beautiful, the man older and with a calculating look in his eyes.

"That's what the cop believed." Dean sighed, running fingers through his hair in frustration. "Apparently she was going to tell _T.W.'s_ wife about the affaire—but was killed that night."

"The thing is," Sam broke in, getting up and joining the others. "The cop said that they never really got evidence to even put Trevor Walters on trial, but he said that Mary's eyes had been removed too cleanly—too professionally."

"The bastard." Lois whispered, looking away from the picture. "What happened to this Walters guy?"

"Died of a heart attack some months after Mary's death." Dean answered.

"Do you think Mary did it?" Chloe asked, looking up from the picture.

"We don't know, his eyes weren't taken." Sam admitted with slight frustration. "We also found out that Mary was cremated."

"_Great_." Chloe growled, leaning back in the sea.

"What?" Lois asked, looking from her cousin to the boys and back. "Why is her being cremated a bad thing?"

"No bones to salt and burn." Chloe explained patiently to her cousin. "That's what we usually do in these sort of cases, but if there's no body to tie the spirit to earth then there's something _else_ keeping her here and we have to find out what it is and destroy it before someone else decides they want to say her name in a mirror for 'fun'."

"Oh." Lois whispered, sounding interested. "What about the mirror?"

"Huh?" Dean asked.

"The _mirror_." Lois pointed a fingernail to the mirror behind Mary's corpse in the crime scene picture. "Could that be her anchor here? She _is_ supposed to come at people when they say her name in front of a mirror."

"You know, she might be right." Sam whispered, eyes wide. "In some legends they say that mirrors had the power to trap souls. That was why in the olden times, when someone died in a house the residents would cover all the mirrors and glasses to keep that from happening."

"But Mary isn't coming out through _that_ mirror." Dean frowned. "Unless she's using it as a conductor in which she can travel through _any_ mirror." He paused. "We need to find that mirror and destroy it before someone else calls her."

"Not everyone who calls her gets killed." Chloe reminded him, sending a look in Lois' direction. "Only someone with a secret in which someone got killed."

"What are we waiting on?" Lois asked, standing up and not looking at anyone, her body stiff. "Let's find out where that damned mirror is and lets send the bitch to hell."

Dean, Chloe and Sam shared a look before nodding.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

They'd found out that Mary's family had sold the mirror to someone who sold antique mirrors, and Dean had gone to purchase it with one of the many credits cards with many different names he possessed, and brought it back to the Lane Residence, resting it in the living room, where everyone else was waiting and anxious…everyone but Chloe, who'd gotten a phone call before Dean'd arrived, and was in the kitchen.

"So…" Lois hugged herself, looking chilled despite the fact that it was a warm night. "What do we do now?"

"We have to get her to appear." Sam answered, eyes set warily on the mirror propped on the sofa.

"Okay, two questions." Lois turned to look at him. "How do we get her to come-and what do we do once she does?"

"You? Nothing." Dean interrupted as he readied his gun. "_You_ are going to go up to your room and not come out until we tell you it's safe."

"Excuse me?" Lois glared at the elder Winchester brother. "This is personal for me and it's _my_ house. This bitch took my dad and boyfriend, and I'm going to be here."

Dean opened his mouth.

"Leave her alone, Dean." Sam interrupted, face serious.

"Excuse me?" Dean turned to his brother. "Why the-?"

"Look, I can understand her, okay?" Sam was a little short in temper as he looked away. "If I was this close to killing what killed _Jessica_ I wouldn't let anyone stop me."

Silence descended on the brothers.

Lois raised her eyebrow. Obviously this was a touchy subject for them.

"Ok then." Dean grudgingly accepted defeat. "You can stay, but if things go south I want you to get your ass out of here, okay?"

Lois nodded rapidly before mouthing a _thank you_ to Sam, who nodded back with a grim expression and returned his attention to the mirror.

"Where's gorgeous?" Dean finally asked, realizing that she wasn't there.

Sam stiffened. "She got a call from the Oliver guy and went to the kitchen for privacy."

Lois watched the guys with amusement, wondering if they even realized that they liked Chloe. It was obvious to any outsider—uncle _Gabe_ had even noticed it for crying out loud!—but maybe as Chloe was in denial so the hunks were.

"I'm going to go and see if she-."

"Needs someone to spy on her private conversations?" Lois called to Dean's retreating figure, stopping him as planned. "I don't think my cousin would appreciate that."

"Do you know who this Oliver is?" Sam turned to Lois. "Do you know who he is to Chloe?"

"Other than the fact that they were _real_ close for _real_ long and she said he was one of the most important people in her life?" Lois asked innocently, watching the boys fidget in discomfort as she said that. "No. I don't. But maybe he's some boyfriend or potential boyfriend or something. All _I_ know is that he's hot-and probably _rich_ if that motorcycle had anything to say about his financial status."

"If he's so important to her, why keep him a secret?" Dean sneered.

"Well, she's kept almost everything about you and Sam a secret as well." Lois pointed out, not feeling like indulging in their games of self-denial. "Your secrets aren't the only ones she keeps, you know. Chloe had this whole life before you guys met. She was this up-and-coming investigative reporter in the Daily Planet, she had friends and family that doted on her, and she's put that all on hold to travel with you guys and be with you."

Sam looked uncomfortable and a little ashamed.

Dean just looked plain uncomfortable.

"You two keep acting like she's yours by right of ownership." Lois had noticed that from the moment they'd arrived, and had been looking for the best time to pick that bone with them. "She doesn't belong to you. She stays with you guys because she trusts you more than anyone else to take care of her, and because she cares about both of you a lot. I know, she's told me. Just don't make her feel like she's trapped with you guys, unable to breathe. She had friends before you-most male-and she's going to continue having them no matter how possessive and jealous you two get."

Sam made a choked sound, face going red immediately.

"_Jealous_?" Dean scoffed, not meeting Lois' eyes. "What a load of bull."

"_Right_." Lois snorted in amusement, folding her arms over her chest. "Look, my cousin might be oblivious to it, but I'm not. I see the way you _both_ look at her, and the fact that both of you want her, maybe even love her." She raised her hand and stopped their sputtered attempts at denial. "Please don't try to deny it, it's so obvious its pathetic-even her _father_ realized you two had the hotts for her."

Dean's eyes went bug-wide.

Sam's face was so red it looked painful.

Neither was looking at each other.

Lois rolled her eyes at them. "Look, I have no problem with it, actually, I kinda find it hot." She grinned slightly. "But what I'm saying is that you guys can't be acting like jealous boyfriends with Chloe, she's always been an independent spirit and she won't take it much longer, okay? Plus, you're not even her boyfriends, not even one of you is, so you don't really get the privilege to act like one."

She opened her mouth and continued berating the two men who were taking everything pretty humbly like kids getting scolded by their mother-none of the three noticing the reflection of the ghostly woman in the mirror propped on the sofa.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe smiled and she flipped closed the lid of her cellular, relief filling her. Oliver's phone call had been a gift from god. Not only had the blonde billionaire apologized for not only his behavior but he'd apologized for doubting her ability to choose her protectors. He'd explained how worried he was about her, how irritated he was with having to sit back during the missions, and how everything had just exploded when he'd met Sam.

Chloe'd eagerly accepted his apology and then tackled the difficult issue at hand. It'd taken a little time to talk through, since Oliver had decided that this wasn't a decision only he could make, so they'd gotten everyone else on the phone as well and had had a little conference like they used to.

It was wonderful talking to her superboys, and Chloe missed them more than ever, but she knew that this was where she had to be for now, and she was glad that most of them understood—even if they didn't totally agree.

When they found out how much trouble it was giving her, they'd unanimously decided to grudgingly trust the Winchesters with their secret—not because they trusted the brothers, but because they trusted Chloe-and that almost made her cry with gratitude as she thanked them.

The phone rang again, and Chloe answered it, wondering who was calling since she didn't recognize the caller I.D. "Sullivan."

"Hey Chloe." Said a soft voice that Chloe hadn't expected to hear. "How are you?"

"Lana?" Chloe blinked in surprise. "Wow, I—I'm fine. How about you?"

"Great." Lana sounded cheery. "I had a little time on my hands and decided to call and see if we could try talking to each other like this-like we used to."

"That was thoughtful." And Chloe meant it, touched at the effort Lana was putting into restoring their friendship. "So, what's been going on over there?"

"Not much, really." Lana sounded like she was smiling. "River Grove is pretty much like Smallville minus the meteor freaks."

"In other words-boring."

Lana laughed. "Yes, but I've decided that I _enjoy_ not getting stalked, kidnapped, and having my life threatened every other week."

Leaning against the kitchen counter, Chloe shook her head in amusement. "And here I thought you reveled in all the attention."

"You're mean, Chloe Sullivan." Lana giggled. "So, what's going on with _you_? Something is always happening to you."

_You have no idea_. "Well, I'm at my cousin's house in Metropolis. Her father just died so I came to attend the funeral."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah," Chloe nodded her head, going to the fridge and pulling out the glass jug of drink, failing to notice the reflection of a woman in the glass as she reached for a cup and poured herself something to drink. "She's taking it pretty well, though…then again, Lois is one of the strongest people I know."

"I'm glad for her." Lana whispered softly. "I know how hard it is to lose a parent."

Throwing her head back and finishing the juice, Chloe put the jug back in the fridge and took the glass to the sink, running the water as she washed it. "Yeah, me too."

"You know, that offer for you to come and spend the weekend or holiday or something still stands."

Chloe smiled as she put the cup on the dish drainer. "I'd like that. I wouldn't be able to do it right now, but I'd definitely like to see this boring little town and catch up with you." The smile on Chloe's face disappeared and she went pale when her gaze raised to the window above the sink and she saw the reflection of a dark haired woman standing behind her, eye-sockets empty and black like midnight. "L-Lana? I gotta call you back."

Hanging up the call, Chloe turned to look behind her, didn't see anyone, and turned back to the window, seeing that the person was right behind her shoulder, empty sockets locked on with her green gaze.

"I didn't say your name." She whispered to Mary. "I didn't kill anyone."

Instantly Mary's image disappeared, replaced by her own image—which was glaring at her angrily. "_No, you didn't kill her, but you didn't help her either, did you?_"

"What?" Chloe asked, shaking her head, confused.

Her image narrowed her eyes at her. "_You knew something was wrong a long time before that day, didn't you?"_

"I—I don't know what you're talking about." Chloe whimpered, trying to tear her gaze from her own hate-filled eyes yet unable to look away.

"Yes you do." The Chloe in the window sneered in disgust. "You knew there was something wrong with your mother-knew she needed help-but you didn't say anything. You just left her to battle it alone. You didn't even try to _help_."

"I didn't _know_." Chloe shook her head violently, fingers digging into her hair hard. "I didn't-!"

"Yes you _did_!" Came the hiss.

And then Chloe remembered…

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

_Five-year-old Chloe giggled as she ran through the house, trying to find her mother to show her the drawing she'd done of them. Her father was out to work, but mommy always stayed at home with Chloe, teaching her, spending time with her, and admiring her drawings._

_Hearing voices, the blonde child grinned and hurried towards her mother's door, which was slightly ajar, and would have ran inside as she usually did without knocking, but something stopped her. It was a feeling Chloe hadn't felt before, but it seemed to tell her to be quiet, to stay hidden, and she did, peeking through the slit of the open door, seeing her mother sitting by her vanity table, looking at herself in the large mirror._

_Chloe frowned slightly when her mother grunted and closed her eyes tightly, head bending as pained sounds escaped her mouth and her body seemed to jerk violently on its own, her fingers digging into the wood of her vanity so hard that there were finger dents in the oak wood…dents filled with blood._

_Placing a hand over her mouth to keep her gasp silent, Chloe's eyes widened in horror as she realized that her mother's fingers were bleeding terribly._

_"Why are you fighting it so hard now?" Her mother's voice sounded so curious and tranquil despite the fact that her body was jerking so erratically. "You've never bothered fighting this much during this whole time, so why all the struggling now?"_

_Chloe was confused, not seeing anyone else in the room. Who was her mother talking to?_

_Moira Sullivan raised her head, looking at her reflection in the mirror dead in the eyes…eyes that were flickering from her normal brilliant blues, to midnight black, to a light so bright it pained to look at it directly._

_Chloe pressed her hand harder against her mouth, frightened and confused._

_"My…daughter…" Moira's voice was suddenly gravelly and forced, eyes brilliant blue._

_Chloe wondered if she'd seen her._

_Moira's eyes went black once more. "Shhhhhh. Stop struggling, you're never going to be free, you know that—you've known that for a long time now. Give up already."_

_Blue eyes. "I won't…let you…have her…"_

_Black eyes, taunting sneer. "Don't worry Moira. We mightn't be able to breed as humans do, but we __**do**__ have 'families' born out of loyalty and certain feelings so I understand your protectiveness. And, really, why fear me? The one Chloe's known as her mommy dearest has always been __**me**__."_ She grinned smugly, admiring herself in the mirror._ "You've got to admit it, I haven't been doing such a bad job raising your daughter."_

_Blue, pained eyes. "He…won't…have her…Megara."_

_Black eyes, blank expression. "You gave away the right to fight me a long time ago, Moira. Don't forget that."_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe was crying and confused as she came up from that memory. "I—I didn't know—I."

"_You ran and forgot."_ Her image accused. "_You __**chose**__ to forget!_"

"No." Chloe whispered, shaking her head rocking back and forth, hands digging in her hair, the pain in her scalp the only thing keeping her grounded. "_No_."

"_She suffered, __**so **__**much**__."_ Her image whispered. "_You could have stopped it. You could have helped her. But you didn't. You didn't do anything_._ You didn't even tell anyone what you'd seen—what you'd heard._"

"I didn't—I-."

The window exploded into little pieces as a high-heeled shoe went sailing through the glass, and Chloe watched in slight trauma as her own image shattered before her very eyes.

"Close your eyes!" And suddenly Dean was behind her, his arms going around her, his hands covering her eyes protectively. "It's okay, it's okay gorgeous, I've got you. I won't let her hurt you, I swear it.""

"Cuz?" Lois's voice was to her right.

"Why was she attacking you?" Sam's voice was to her left as Dean slowly turned her around, and never taking his hands from her eyes, slowly guided the shaking woman out of the living room. "Did you invoke her?"

"_No_." Chloe choked. "I—I didn't know-I didn't know!"

"What's she rambling about?" Dean wanted to know.

"She's still under Mary's influence." Sam whispered, worried.

"Well, _do_ something about it!" Lois hissed the order and stomped her foot.

Sam suddenly grunted in pain.

"Sam?" Dean and Lois asked at the same time.

Chloe's head was fogged up; she was unable to think of anything, felt as if she were about to slip into some sort of dream.

There was a cry of pain and then a loud thud somewhere behind Chloe.

"_Sammy_!"

"Get up!" Lois sounded just as frantic as Dean. "What are you looking at? What-? Dean! His eyes are bleeding!"

"_Dammit_." Dean was tense, trying to hold Chloe up but her legs were giving up on her.

"_What do we do?_" Lois asked.

"Is Mary in her-?" Dean to look towards the sofa and then suddenly went still, his hold around Chloe loosened immediately and she plummeted to the ground, barely feeling the pain as she collapsed onto the carpeted floor.

"That's my cousin, Winchester!" Lois sounded outraged, but there was no answer. "Dean?" Lois asked, sounding less sure of herself. "_Dean_?"

Chloe opened her eyes slowly, watching as Dean collapsed to his knees, eyes connected with the mirror, and bleeding blood, looking agonized as he cried out in pain.

She groaned as she turned slightly and saw Sam crumpled on the floor, in a worse condition than Dean, eyes also on the mirror.

"_You didn't save them…"_ a mix of voices accused demonically. "_You let so many die! You didn't save them! They died screaming for help!_"

"Oh my god," Lois gasped as she looked at the mirror as well. "I see her. I—I _see_ her!"

Chloe looked away, refusing to look at the mirror now that her connection had been shattered. "_Lois_…the _mirror_."

Lois took off her other heel and held the stiletto in her hand like a machete, taking in a deep breath. "Here comes fourteen years of bad luck." With that said she rushed to the mirror and brought her shoe against it as hard as she could over and over again, the sound of an outraged, otherworldly shriek echoing out of the mirror as the glass shattered into a million pieces.

Immediately Dean and Sam stopped crying out in pain, and the fog began to dissipate from Chloe's brain.

"_Didn't save them_…" That voice brought shivers up Chloe's spine as she looked up in time to see the broken and battered body of Mary Matheson escaping the mirror's frame and slowly making her way towards them. "_Killers, the lot of you_!"

"HEY!" Lois' voice caused Mary to turn her head towards her. The brunette took in a deep breath. "I'll show you the real killer here!" Picking up a large shard of glass, she gripped it tightly, the glass cutting into her palm, causing her to bleed, but she didn't react as she watched Mary staring at her own reflection in slight fear. "Do you see that? _That_ is a real killer!"

"_N-no._" The thing that'd once been Mary Matheson shook its head and yet couldn't keep from looking in the mirror, voice trembling. "He h-hurt me! He killed me! He deserved to be killed! They all do! I'm keeping people safe!"

"No!" Lois took a step closer to the thing. "You're not keeping anyone safe. You're just killing because you can-you're just like him!"

"_No_." Mary whimpered as to the surprise of everyone tears of blood began to run down her cheeks in thick, unending trails. "That's not true!"

"You're just like Trevor, Mary." Lois pressed dangerously. "He took you from your family, and you took my father from his—my boyfriend from his!"

"They hurt people!" Mary argued. "They deserved to be punished!"

"Not by _you_!" Lois growled. "You're a bad person Mary, you're not even a person. You're just _evil_."

"_No_!" Mary screamed as she collapsed to her knees.

Suddenly two gunshots sounded in the house, and Mary gasped, blood-filled eyes wide before she melted away into nothing, a bullet wound in her forehead and the other in her heart.

Only when there was nothing left of Mary did Lois drop the shard of glass in her hand and collapse on the ground next to her cousin.

Sam and Dean sighed from where they were pointing their guns at where Mary had once knelt.

"Chloe?" Lois whispered. "Chloe, are you alright?"

Rolling painfully on her back, Chloe looked up at her cousin and smiled pitifully, pained by her memories yet amazed by her cousin. "I'm so proud of you."

Lois smiled shakily. "It's over now, right?" When her cousin nodded, the brunette broke out into tears and threw herself at the younger woman, hugging her tightly.

Hours later found the Lane house boarded up and Lois' things packed. She'd decided to go and spend some time with Gabe in Smallville, and while the older Lane had wanted her younger sister to go with her, Lucy had preferred to stay with her friends and their family.

Chloe, Sam and Dean were going to drive Lois and her things to Smallville before taking off towards their next job, which they'd gotten a couple of minutes ago via a phone call to Dean.

"So," Sam looked up at his brother as they loaded Lois' things into the trunk of the Impala. "What's in Missouri?"

"An old friend's father died in an apparently supernatural way," Dean said hesitantly, shooting Chloe a look before clearing his throat and looking away uncomfortably. "We're going to go there and figure out what happened."

"What's the friend's name?" Chloe asked as they all got into the car, the boys up front and the girls sitting behind.

Dean waited until he'd started the engine before answering with a sigh. "Cassie."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**There you go. Lois' first time in a 'hunt' per se. I enjoy her so much. Oh well, hope you liked this!**

**Review?**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Yeah, when I began the planning for this series I was wondering whether I should include __**Cassie**__ in it at all. At first I thought I shouldn't since I never really liked her character. I kinda feel that she used Dean and his feelings for her to help her when she needed his expertise in ghost stuff. Still, I've decided that I need to use her in this story for my own selfish, personal reasons._

_**I can't remember the real name of the newspaper that Cassie worked at, so I'm making up my own name for it.**_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

They hadn't spent more than a couple of minutes in Smallville because Dean was anxious to get to Missouri and help Cassie. Ever since he'd gotten that phone call the elder Winchester had been irritated, jumpy, and hadn't really been on his nicest behavior when they'd gotten to Chloe's father's home and gotten a glare from Gabe Sullivan.

It'd been a tense reunion, especially since Gabe'd done his best to convince Chloe to stay behind for that mission and just stay with him and Lois because he 'missed her'. Dean hadn't needed to be a mind reader to realize that her father just didn't like him and Sam and wanted to try and keep his daughter away from them, and that irritated him only more.

He'd only managed to keep himself from sneering smugly at the man when Chloe had firmly told him that she was going to go with them on the road and that her place was by their side. He knew that he was being an ass and in no way was he endearing himself to her father, but Dean just didn't care right now. He had two things on his mind.

See Cassie…

And keep Chloe with them.

Mission 2 had been successful, but as they now drove through Cassie's hometown in Missouri, he felt his stomach hurting him. He felt queasy too. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't because he was excited to see her, actually, as they got closer and closer to where she worked, Dean kept sending discreet glances through the rearview mirror at Chloe as she typed innocently on the keyboard of her laptop, grinning at whoever it was she was chatting to this time.

Nope, he wasn't excited to see Cassie at all…quite on the contrary, he was dreading it more and more with each passing moment.

Maybe Chloe shouldn't have come with them for this mission-but Dean knew that he wouldn't be able to concentrate on helping Cassie if he was constantly worried and wondering abut Chloe, so he had to admit that this was the best thing he could have done given the situation.

_Still_.

This wasn't going to be comfortable.

"So, you mind finally telling us exactly _who_ this _Cassie_ is before we're thrown headfirst into this?" Sam asked from the front passenger's seat, eyebrow raised.

"I told you already." Dean gritted his teeth. "She's an _old friend_."

"_Right_." Sam's face was that of unbelief. "Because everyone knows how many girls you keep around as good ol' platonic buddies."

Dean closed his eyes for a second and took in a deep breath, trying to calm down his nervous anger. "Okay—okay. So maybe we had a short thing once upon a time."

He looked at Chloe through the rearview mirror a moment too late to notice the way her body tensed at that. By the time he'd look she'd already schooled her expression into casual disinterest.

"A _thing_?" Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother. "As in more than a one night stand?" He blinked in genuine shock. "You actually _do_ that sort of thing?"

Dean began counting one to ten silently to try and keep his temper in check.

"Wait." Sam suddenly announced, eyes narrowing. "How does this ex-fling of yours know what we do?" When all he got was silence, the brunet's eyes widened in horror. "You told her." He shook his head, eyes narrowing once more. "You _told_ her. I can't believe it!" He threw his hands in the air. "What is the number one family rule? We keep our private and business life separate and secret! I was with Jess for a whole _year_ keeping this hidden from her and you told someone you had 'a short thing' with?"

"We're here." Dean didn't know whether he was relieved or not as they pulled up outside the small building.

"She works at a _newspaper_?" Chloe's voice was soft and tinted with something Dean didn't exactly like.

He turned and looked back at her as her green eyes were trained on the sign on the building that said the _Lothorio Tribune_. Chloe's expression was pinched, her eyes questioning and looking slightly hurt for some reason.

Dean frowned slightly, wondering what the deal with Cassie being a journalist meant to Chloe.

'_Chloe had this whole life before you and Sam.'_ Lois Lane's voice sounded in his head. '_She was this up-and-coming investigative reporter.'_

The sandy-blonde closed his eyes slightly with a silent groan. How could he have forgotten that? Obviously bringing Chloe here would bring up old memories of her life before Sam and him had come and turned everything upside down.

_Good going, Winchester._

Uncomfortable, wondering if bringing Chloe on this mission would somehow only manage to bring a wedge between them instead of keeping them close despite her father's attempts, the elder brother realized that this was going to be a turning point in their friendship—he just hoped it wasn't a bad one.

Sighing, Dean turned back in his seat and got out of the Impala, looking at the newspaper with sudden distaste. He didn't want to do this, didn't want to bring Chloe into contact with Cassie, didn't want to bring _himself_ into contact with Cassie-but he'd loved her once, had thought of maybe leaving the 'job' for her, had thought that she was 'the one'.

He owed her this, and Dean Winchester paid all of his debts.

Chloe and Sam's doors slammed shut and with a breath to prepare himself for the unknown, Dean started towards the front door, feeling his brother and the woman he was slowly admitting to himself he cared for more than he'd thought possible walking close behind.

As they entered the building, the first thing they heard was Cassie, she was standing with a tall, older dark man, and glaring at a smaller white man.

"People are dying out there, McElroy!" Cassie, thin, attractive, with smooth dark skin and darker curls that fell wildly around her face, placed her hands on her narrow hips and glared at the white man. "First my father and then Jerome? There's a killer out there and you won't let me run the article?"

The older white man, obviously the editor, took in a deep, long-suffering sigh. "Listen, Cassie, I understand that this is personal for you, and I cannot let you know how sad I am for your loss, but your father ran off of a road. He wasn't killed. The same thing happened to Jerome. You have to learn to let go."

Cassie clenched her fists tightly. "My father didn't _run off the road_, he was _hit from behind_! Jerome too!"

"Leonard." The tall black man tried entreating. "That's two black men who have died in the same stretch of highway in the same in the last two weeks."

"And it's a tragedy, I know that Jimmy." McElroy seemed genuinely sorry.

"_She even has a Jimmy_." Chloe whispered softly to herself.

Dean raised an eyebrow at that and turned from the confrontation to send the pretty blonde a questioning look, but Chloe's eyes were on Cassie and the confrontation.

"I'm sorry." McElroy shook his head as he left Cassie and Jimmy at Cassie's desk.

Jimmy and Cassie exchanged looked.

Dean cleared his throat. It was time to get this over and done with.

Cassie turned at the sound and her eyes widened, a soft smile touching her face. "_Dean_." Walking towards them she opened her arms and threw herself at him in a hug Dean awkwardly returned.

Clearing his throat, the sandy-blonde pulled out of the hug and looked at the woman he'd once seen himself living the rest of his life with. "I'm sorry about your father, Cass."

She smiled sadly. "Thanks." Her brown eyes went behind him to Sam and Chloe, looking curious as she stepped around Dean to get a better look at them. "I see you travel with other people now. Where's your dad?"

"He's busy." Sam answered, pushing his hands into his jacket's pockets. "So, Dean said that you thought this might be of interest to us?"

Dean's eyes widened in surprise and he motioned towards Jimmy discreetly.

"Cassie told me all about your, uh, _job_." The much older man announced agreeably. "So you don't have to be all secretive around me."

"Jimmy here works with me here at the Tribune," Cassie nodded. "He believes like I do that something _unnatural_ is happening here."

"Unnatural doesn't mean _supernatural_." Chloe announced, looking around the _Tribune_ slowly, taking in the sound of fingers typing rapidly against keyboards before returning her gaze squarely on Cassie's face. "Cannibalism is unnatural, but that doesn't mean that everyone who eats human flesh out there is connected to the supernatural. Some are just really mentally disturbed people." She waited a second for that to sink in before continuing. "What makes you think that something _supernatural_ is involved in this case?"

A muscle ticked in Cassie's cheek. "All the cars have been run off at the same stretch of highway, and all were being driven by black men. It's been raining the last two weeks in which the accidents have happened, and while there are always only _one_ set of tire tracks in the mud afterwards, the back of each of the cars have damage as if something large had rammed into them multiple times."

Dean raised an eyebrow as he looked between Chloe and Cassie. He sent a discreet 'what the hell is going on?' look in Sam's direction only to realize that his brother looked just as interested in the womanly exchange.

"What have the police determined?" Chloe asked. "Have they been able to find anything in the back of the-."

"Look." Cassie broke in tersely. "I don't know who you are, but _I'm_ the top investigative journalist here." She motioned around the small town newspaper building. "I think I have a _little_ better idea than you do on how to investigate and things." She made a face. "Who _are_ you _anyway_?"

Chloe's eyes narrowed. "Chloe Sullivan."

The name didn't register with Cassie, but it did with _Jimmy_.

The older man's eyes widened as he took a step towards her. "Chloe Sullivan?" He didn't seem to notice that everyone was looking at him oddly. "The _Daily Planet's_ young star reporter, Chloe Sullivan?"

Chloe's face suddenly broke into a smile. "Well, I don't know about _star_ reporter, but that _is_ me."

Jimmy smiled largely as well. "I can't believe it, it's a pleasure to meet you in person." He shook her hand fervently. "This is embarrassing to admit like some school girl, but I'm a big fan. I've followed your work closely and that article you wrote that got you a nomination for the Pulitzer last year? It was brilliant. You deserved to have gotten the prize."

Chloe blushed prettily, looking a bit embarrassed. "Yes, well, Mark deserved the prize in the end. Anyway, I'm still fairly young-."

"The youngest reporter to ever be nominated for the award." Jimmy nodded, continuing to shake her hand. "It's an honor to meet you in person, really it is."

Dean was in shock.

He knew enough to know that getting nominated for a _Pulitzer_ was a big deal-and the fact that Chloe had almost won was _awing_.

He smiled at her as she answered some of Jimmy's questions about her last article—the one Dean hadn't even known she'd written while with them.

Honestly, their girl was amazing.

The look he sent in Sam's direction showed that Sam was smiling proudly at Chloe as well, probably thinking the same thing.

"Well, as interesting as talking to you is," Chloe smiled, looking more comfortable as she turned to a suddenly silent Cassie. "We're here because _you_ need help." She looked around the room. "And don't you have a place that's a _little_ more quiet and private? I don't know about here, but in the Daily Planet it's really competitive and everyone knows that reporters and journalists are insanely curious by nature and I think you'd want to keep your colleagues as in the dark about this subject as possible."

Cassie looked at Chloe in silence for a moment, looked at Dean and Sam, and then returned her gaze to Chloe. "You're right."

And Dean didn't miss the victorious glint in Chloe's eyes at that.

He raised an eyebrow.

What female silent war were they doing right now that Chloe had apparently won?

Really, women were _way_ too cunning and sneaky in their methods for men to be able to keep up with them.

Shaking his head, Dean followed Cassie as she motioned for them to follow her out of the small building.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe felt like a mean bitch.

Honestly, she wasn't normally like this, but for some reason with Cassie she'd just gone on the defensive, and when she'd seen the shock in Cassie's eyes when Jimmy had said who she was, and saw the superior attitude drain out of the very attractive dark woman, Chloe had shifted to the offensive, and had been playing it throughout the whole meeting at Cassie's home, which she shared with her mother.

What the blonde couldn't understand was _why_ she let Cassie rub her the wrong way. Usually Chloe was good at ignoring people with feelings of superiority and everything, but with Cassie she'd just wanted to knock the girl off the "I'm-the-best-reporter-of-a-no-reputation-small-town-newspaper-and-you-are-below-me" pedestal that she'd placed herself on.

_The girl just lost her father-she's supposed to act out._

Sighing, Chloe listened in silence as Jimmy and Cassie explained to them about the phantom truck that Cassie's father had said he'd seen 'following him' weeks before his 'accident'.

"My mother's been shook-up ever since." Cassie whispered from where she sat on the loveseat with Jimmy, looking so sad it made Chloe feel guilty. "She won't talk to anyone about it, and she barely leaves her room anymore."

"Do you think she'd let me talk to her and ask her some questions?" Dean asked.

"No." Cassie shook her head. "She only really talks to me now, and if I try to bring it up she closes up on me and won't speak for the rest of the time I'm with her."

Chloe's gaze went to the mantle and she saw a picture of Cassie and her parents. Her father was a good-looking dark man and her mother was an attractive redhead with blue eyes.

No wonder Cassie had come out so pretty—both of her parents had some unique attractiveness to them.

"It's amazing how this place hasn't changed one bit." Dean announced suddenly as he looked around.

"Yeah," Cassie smiled tenderly at him. "You used to almost live over here, remember? Dad used to say that you were the son he always wanted." She giggled. "Remember how he and John would get together and play dominoes or poker in the nights and accuse each other of cheating every single game they played?" Cassie reached forwards and placed her hand over Dean's. "My daddy loved you so much."

"Yeah, I liked him too." Dean smiled at Cassie.

_While my dad hates your guts.._. Chloe stewed silently from where she sat in between Sam and Dean on the sofa, decidedly _not_ looking at the hand Cassie had on Dean's. _Stupid alien filling his head up with dumb ideas._

As if sensing that she was insecure and feeling out of place, Sam's arm went around her shoulder and pulled her slightly towards him.

Chloe turned to him in surprise and then smiled, leaning her head against his chest as they rearranged their position a little on the sofa, her arm slung casually around his chest, both missing the surprised and then pleased look Cassie sent in their direction.

Dean, on the other hand, cleared his throat and pulled his hand from under Cassie's, standing up. "It's getting late. We should probably be looking for a motel room."

Sam and Chloe shared a look before standing up as well, the blonde trying not to admit how relieved she was of the thought of getting out of this house and away from Cassie.

"Why don't you guys stay _here_?" Cassie stood rapidly.

"_No_." Dean said almost as rapidly. "We'll be at the motel, if you need anything, just call us."

A strange emotion crossed over Cassie's eyes but she blinked and it was gone. "Okay."

"I should probably be going too." Jimmy sighed as he got up.

They walked to their respective cars and headed in different directions, Jimmy to his home slightly outside of town, Chloe, Dean and Sam heading to the motel in town.

No one would find out until later the next day that Jimmy never made it to his destination.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"What do you mean it's all you have?" Sam asked, eyes wide, face slightly red. "We're _three people_."

The cranky owner of the only motel glared at him from behind the desk. "I told you. Some bus filled with jap tourists traveling all over the states are occupying all the other rooms. That's the only room we have unavailable."

Dean sighed, shaking his head. "We're gonna have to take Cassie up on her offer."

"No, we _won't_." Chloe announced, voice tense as she suddenly jerked the key from the owner's hands. "We'll take it."

Sam turned and looked at Chloe in surprise. "Uh, Chloe-?"

"Pay the man." She ordered, marching towards the room.

The man looked after her with a smirk. "Reminds me of my Matilda. Pretty, but bossy as hell."

"You don't know the _half_ of it." Dean groaned as he pulled out his credit card.

The brothers checked themselves in, grabbed their things from the Impala, and made their way to the room they'd rented, opening the door and going inside, eyeing the one, King-sized bed. Apparently this was what the owner had called the _Special Room_, and Sam _REALLY_ didn't know what usually went on in this room to give it that name.

Chloe emerged from the bathroom, body wrapped in a towel, hair wet and clinging to her face, steam rising from her wet, glistening, pale body.

Sam gulped.

He sent a look in Dean's direction and saw his brother eyeing Chloe with eyes as wide as saucers.

The blonde paused as she looked at them, probably realizing that this was the first time that they'd ever seen her with so little on, but then she cleared her throat and went towards Sam, taking her bag from him. "Forgot before I began bathing that I hadn't taken my stuff out." She admitted, throwing her bag onto the bed and turning to them. "You guys should go bathe while there's still some hot water."

"Sammy, you go first." Dean announced, his voice odd. "I'm think some cold water won't hurt me at this stage."

Sam's eyes widened and he turned to Dean in surprise, glad that Chloe had turned her back on them and was rummaging through her clothes in her bag, obviously not having heard Dean's little comment.

"I, uh," with no comment, Sam shook his head and went to the bed as well, putting his bag on it and looking for some clothes to change into after bathing.

Dean could be heard choking behind them, and Sam only then realized that Chloe was bending over checking her things, which probably meant that the bottom of her towel was riding dangerously high on the back of her thighs, unknowingly giving Dean a peak of forbidden territory.

Sam turned to give her some sort of hint, but then his eyes widened as he realized that with the bending, and with his position checking for his clothes as well, he was being given a spectacular view of cleavage that seemed about to burst from the confines of the towel.

He gulped, trying to remember what he'd turned to her for in the first place and not coming up with anything as he just contented himself to continue admiring her.

The towel began to slip slightly and right before it could fall undone, Chloe quickly grabbed it, pulling it tighter against her, face red.

Sam tore his gaze from her quickly and closed his eyes tightly, bringing his bag against him in an attempt to hide the painful effect seeing her had had upon him. "Uh, Dean, you know what? _You_ should go next."

"No—no, _you_ next." Dean insisted.

With big jersey with the name _KENT_ on the back and an underwear in hand, Chloe raised her eyebrow at them before shaking her head and heading towards the bathroom to dry off and change out of the towel.

The moment the bathroom door closed the brothers turned to each other, finger pointed accusingly, and hissed. "_You were checking her out!_" They then blinked at each other and hissed once more in union. "_No I wasn't!_"

The Winchesters glared at each other, fingers still pointed.

"Look," Sam was the first to back down, running a hand through his silky hair. "You were checking her out dude," he hurriedly continued before Dean could deny that. "And so was I."

Dean's mouth, which had been opened with a hot denial on the tip of his tongue, remained open for a surprised second before he swiftly closed it and cleared his throat, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "Uh, yeah, so I guess we were _both_ checking her out."

"I like her, Dean." Sam admitted. "And I know you do too. Hell, I think everyone's realized we like Chloe. You heard Lois, even her _dad_ realizes it."

"Can I just point out how _awkward_ I find that?" The elder brother asked as Chloe began singing loudly and out of tune in the bathroom as she continued to change.

"Duly noted." Sam nodded his agreement to that. "I—I just don't want the fact that you like her and I like her cause you and me to have problems with each other." He was serious. "We're family, bro, and I don't want any girl, not even one as special as Chloe, to come between us."

Suddenly Dean's eyes glazed over.

Sam raised his eyebrow in confusion as to _why_ Dean would react like that, until he replayed what he'd just said in his head and his eyes went wide. "_Dean!_"

"_What_?" Dean asked sheepishly, being pulled from his obvious fantasy.

"This is something that calls for you to think with your _upstairs brain_!" Sam growled.

Dean was suddenly serious. "All I'm saying, Sammy, is that when I told Clark that I'm willing to share with you, I meant it."

Sam looked at his brother for a moment before smiling and shaking his head. "Uhm, thanks bro, but I don't think Chloe would go for that sort of thing."

"Probably not." Dean agreed reluctantly, going to sit on the bed and then stopping when he realized how uncomfortable that position would be in his condition.

"So, what are we going to do about this situation?" Sam asked his elder brother.

The bathroom door opened and Chloe emerged from the steam, dressed in the overly large jersey, hearing the last question. "Well, it's too cold for you guys to sleep on the floor _obviously_, and it's a big bed."

"Excuse me?" Dean squeaked.

"Come again?" Sam didn't sound any better.

"Well, it's not like I haven't slept in a bed with one or the other of you before." Chloe announced, not looking at them as she went to pick up her computer and brought it with her to the bed. "We'll all use the bed, and I'll stay in the middle and make sure you two don't feel too weird about sharing a bed with each other." She finally looked at them and grinned. "Oh c'mon. It'll be fun!"

Dean gulped.

Sam closed his eyes.

Dammit.

This was going to be one _long_ night.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Review?**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I do not own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Have to tell you from now. I enjoyed writing this chapter…at least part of it anyway! The part with Cassie/Dean kinda for some reason KILLED me to write. As I said, I didn't really like Cassie all that much, so to have that little moment in this chapter really made me not to want to write it at all, but I couldn't leave you people hanging like this for so long._

_So, yes, here's the chapter you guys have been all waiting for._

_**This is for moonstar_sfu, because of the bad week experienced. Hope this makes you feel better!**_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe didn't know what it was that woke her up exactly, but the last thing she remembered had been falling asleep in the middle of the large bed feeling as if she were alone in it thanks to the fact that Sam and Dean were keeping to their edges of the bed as if she had some sort of horrible contagious disease. Honestly, it'd been a blow to her ego to think that the thought of touching her or sleeping close to her would disgust them this much, but Chloe had gotten over it and forced herself to fall asleep.

She hadn't quite expected the scene to change so drastically by the time she woke up, but, uh, yeah, it had.

Never in a billion years had she ever imagined an image as the one they were presenting at the moment.

Sam was lying on his back, pillow on the ground, and while that wasn't so bad, the fact that she was draped all over him _was_. Somehow during the night she'd shifted so that she was resting with her arm across his chest, her cheek over his heartbeat and one of her legs loped over his.

And _no_, the oddness didn't end there. Dean had somehow shifted as well so that he was spooning her completely from behind, arm around her waist. His breath caressed the back of her neck and there was something hard pressing against her butt…something she was desperately trying to ignore.

Closing her eyes tightly, Chloe didn't dare move, not exactly sure what she should do in this sort of circumstance.

_Somewhere out there, Lois is laughing her ass off at me_.

All of her cousin's teasing concerning threesomes came jolting back in Chloe's memory, along with the last thing Lois had whispered to her when they'd hugged goodbye at her father's home in Smallville.

'_Life is short, Lil' Cuz, and that's without some demon gunning after you. Why not take happiness in any way that you can?'_

Cursing Lois and her speeches that came back to haunt at the most inappropriate of times, Chloe sighed. She then paused, thinking about Lois' comments once more.

_Well, she's right. I __**do**__ have some crazy demon after me._ The blonde blinked. _I'm not saying I'm going to ruin my relationship with the boys and scare them out of their wits by __**jumping**__ them or something…but who says that I shouldn't enjoy this while it lasts?_

With that decided, Chloe smiled slightly and shifted softly as to not wake up the brothers, pressing herself more against Sammy, resting her cheek closer to the beating of his heart. A blush reddened her cheeks and she prayed to god that Dean wouldn't wake up and she slowly reached for his hand and tugged him closer.

The sandy-blonde grumbled in his sleep but moved so that he was pressed up against her once more, his hard on resting against her ass as he tightened his grip around her waist and fell back into sleep.

_I can't believe I just did that_.

Burning up with embarrassment, Chloe snuggled deeper between them and closed her eyes, forcing herself to fall asleep once more, never realizing that once her body relaxed in the lull of sleep that two sets of eyes, one blue/green and the other hazel, shot open and looked at her in shock.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Jimmy had died.

And that hadn't been the whole of the mystery.

When Dean had received Cassie's call he'd seriously considered just letting it ring. He'd been awake for hours, wondering what exactly it meant that Chloe had snuggled closer instead of pulling away when she'd awakened to find them in that inappropriate position.

But Dean knew that Cassie would only call him for something important, so he'd dragged himself away from Chloe and reached for his cellular and learnt that Jimmy had died last night driving to his house. It was the same MO that'd been used on Cassie's father and the family friend Jerome.

That news spurred Dean into getting up and waking up Sam and Chloe as he rapidly headed to take a shower. Cassie had called them from the accident site and he'd wanted to get a good look of it and maybe talk to the police.

They'd made in there in record time in time to find Cassie, holding up admirably despite everything, arguing it with the Mayor of the town. Mayor Todd was tall, white, and advancing in age. He also looked a little annoyed with Cassie as she made demands and questioned his decisions.

Cassie'd wanted Mayor Todd to close down the road-which was the only road in and out of the town, and he'd refused to do so. The dark beauty had then showed the fire that'd made Dean fall in love with her in the first place and challenged the Mayor in front of everyone on the fact that if it'd been white people dying that he would probably be looking more into the whole issue and would have closed the road down at least temporarily.

What'd happened next had surprised Dean.

The Mayor had looked hurt for a second before shaking his head. "You're accusing me of being a _racist_, Cassie Robinson?"

Cassie just glared at him, eyes hard despite the pain in them.

"I'm the _last_ person _you_ should accuse of that." Mayor Todd finally announced, meeting her eye for eye.

Cassie had paused, looking confused. "What do you mean?"

"Ask your _mother_." And with that Mayor Todd had nodded his goodbye to them and left everyone with a lot of questions.

Obviously there was more going on than met the eye, so they'd split up. Cassie had gone back to her office to find out what she could about what could be the link between her father, Jerome and Jimmy-Chloe went back to the motel to investigate Mayor Todd and see what she could find out on him-and the brothers left to interrogate some of Jimmy's friends.

Sam and Dean had claimed to be insurance investigators and gotten some interesting information about Jimmy from his friends—including the fact that the African American had kept it a secret from Cassie that he'd been seeing a large black truck tailing him at night-like her father had.

One of Jimmy's friends, when asked if he'd ever seen this truck, had shaken his head no but said that he'd _heard_ of it before. Apparently a truck of the same description had been involved in the disappearance and deaths of black men in the 60's, and he also hinted quite pointedly that during that time the townsfolk had still be very bigoted.

Undoing the tie he'd been forced to wear along with the suit to look more like an insurance investigator, Dean threw the device of torture in the backseat of the Impala as they got in.

"That black truck keeps popping up." Sam pointed out as he got in.

"I've been thinking." Dean announced as he started the engine and turned to look at his brother. "You know of the Flying Dutchman?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded from the front passenger's seat. "A ghost-ship infused with the captain's evil spirit. It was basically a part of him."

"Yeah—so what if we're dealing with the same thing?" The elder Winchester asked. "You know. A phantom truck being the extension of some bastard ghost reenacting past crimes."

"The victims _have_ all been black men." Sam responded with a slow shake of his head.

"I think it's more than that." Dean frowned slightly. "They all seem connected to Cassie and her family."

"Alright, well, _you_ work that angle. Go talk to her." Sam announced, picking up the cellular he'd left in the car and frowning slightly when he noticed no miss calls. "Oh, and you might also want to mention that other thing."

Dean paused in his attempt to reverse out of the parking space and turned to look at Sam. "What other thing?"

"The serious unfinished business?" Sam snorted as he tore his gaze from the screen of his phone and saw the expression on his brother's face. "Dean. What went on between you two? And don't tell me that it was _nothing_ because the way she was looking at you? The way you two were walking down memory lane last night? Not 'nothing' material, okay?"

"Alright, so maybe we were a little more involved than I said." Dean sighed in frustration, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

"Oh, okay." Sam said in a way that showed that he'd already guessed that.

Dean closed his eyes for a moment and sighed _harder_. "Okay, a _lot_ more. Maybe. And I told her the secret about what we do and I shouldn't have."

Noticing how uncomfortable this one-on-one was making his brother, Sam placed his hand on his shoulder. "Look, man, everyone has to open up to someone now and then."

"I _don't_." Dean shrugged off his touch. "It was stupid to get that close. I mean, look how it ended." When there was only silence he chanced a look at his brother and scowled at the expression on his face. "Would you _stop_?" Still more silence. "_Blink_ or something."

Sam continued to look at his brother's face in slight awe as he suddenly realized something. "You loved her."

Dean sighed in utter frustration. "Oh _God_…"

Sam blinked, trying to get the information to register in his brain. "You were _in love_ with her but you _dumped_ her." His brown eyes widened when he saw Dean freeze and refuse to meet his gaze. "Oh-wow." He scoffed in disbelief. "_She_ dumped _you_."

Dean's only answer was to tear out of the parking space and parking lot, driving a little above the speed limit.

"Dude, getting us killed in an accident is not going to solve this." Sam announced, buckling himself in rapidly.

"Why are we talking about this again?" Dean wanted to know, annoyed as he took a right turn.

"Because this situation might be between you and Cassie, but it's affecting Chloe and I too—_and_ the investigation." Sam wisely pointed out, glad when Dean slowed down the Impala to a reasonable speed. "I think you guys need closure. You need to go to talk to Cassie tonight not only about how the truck might be connected to her family, but about your guys relationship and get all the tension _gone_. Your relationship ended and you guys didn't talk it over. You didn't vent your frustrations. You need to do it or neither of you will ever be able to truly put it behind you two."

Dean frowned slightly. "When did you become Dr. Phil?"

Sam smirked, glad that he had his brother back to normal.

"And anyway," Dean continued. "Shouldn't you be _pushing_ me to get back with Cassie and not get _closure?_"

"Why would I want that?" Sam made a face in confusion.

Dean scoffed. "Chloe."

There was silence between the brothers at the mention of the one thing that kept them together and divided them all at the same time.

"I really like her, and I know you do too." Dean admitted once again, which was amazing because for Dean to open up like this usually he had to be stone-cold drunk. Or under some sort of a spell. "I mean, how _couldn't_ we? She's _amazing_. She not only believes us and _in_ us, but she's there with us."

Sam smiled slightly in agreement as he leaned back in his seat, getting comfortable.

"She's a smartass and a little annoying when she wants to be, but I enjoy it." Dean grinned, taking a left. "She's a whiz in the research department, is doing better with every hunt we go on, and she—she—she makes our life seem a little less-."

"Lonely?" Sam chanced.

Dean smirked. "I was going to say meaningless."

The younger Winchester looked at his brother in surprise. "Meaningless? But I thought you lived for the hunt?"

"What else have I ever had to live for, Sam?" Dean asked in a soft voice.

And suddenly Sam was seeing his brother in a new light. "I guess, I guess you're right." He made a face and looked at the road ahead of them. "Chloe's really special. There aren't many women out there—if any—who would accept our lifestyle as easily as she does or fit in as perfectly."

"And none would look _half_ as sexy as she does when she's holding a smokin' sawed off." Grin completely _lecherous_, Dean chuckled.

Sam smirked in agreement before continuing. "My point is, Dean, that we're lucky to have Chloe in our lives in any way possible. Even if it's in the strictly brotherly way."

"Yes, of course, but it _isn't_ the strictest brotherly way." Dean argued his case. "You were awake this morning, I _know_ it lil' bro. You _saw_ the way she reacted to us. She didn't pull away, she _pulled us closer_."

Sam gulped at the memory. "Yeah, I noticed."

"Makes me kinda wonder if our Lil' Chlo would actually be so against us sharing after all."

Silence reigned in the Impala as they drove through the town and finally ended up at the place they were staying at. As Dean dropped Sam off the sun began to set in the sky and he sighed, turning the car around and heading towards Cassie's workplace.

As he drove there his mind was on what Sam and Chloe were doing alone in their room, and what he was going to say to Cassie.

Entering the building he found out that Cassie had left, and with a sigh he drove to her house. Her mom's car was out but Cassie's was there, and Dean felt a little nervous as he got out of the Impala and walked up to the front door, knocking it, remembering all the times he'd done the same thing while coming to pick up Cassie for a date or something.

The door opened and Cassie appeared, beautiful and vibrant, even if looking a little sad. "Dean."

"Hey." He nodded, hands in his jacket's pockets.

"Come on in." The dark beauty stepped aside, let him in, and closed the door behind him.

"So…" Dean followed her into the library, the room in the house she used to write up all her articles. "You busy?"

"Uh, the paper's doing a tribute to Jimmy." She confessed, going to the desk where her computer was situated. "I was just going through his stuff—his awards—trying to find the words." Her voice wavered slightly but her face was brave.

Awkward silence descended on all of them as Dean looked around him, memories assailing him. Cassie and him had done it on every surface of this room—especially that desk. "It's gotta be tough."

Cassie nodded. "For years this family owned the paper-the Dorians? They had a white-only policy. After they sold it Jimmy became the first black reporter. He didn't stop until he became the assistant editor." Cassie smiled sadly, looking down at some of the folders on her desk. "Leonard was retiring at the end of this year and Jimmy was going to take his place as Editor and Chief."

"I'm sorry for your loss." And he really was.

"I know." Cassie whispered, picking up a picture with Jimmy's picture on it. "He taught me everything I know, he was like my second father." Putting down the picture she took in a deep breath and looked around, wiping her palms on her jeans pants. "Where's your brother and Chloe?"

"Not here." Dean didn't know why he didn't want to answer that question.

"They look so cute together." Cassie announced out of the blue, eyes on the books on her desk. "I hadn't realized that they were a couple at first but-."

"They _aren't_—a couple." Dean interrupted a little abruptly, annoyed at himself for feeling jealous at the fact that apparently Chloe and Sam looked like a couple.

_"Alright_." Cassie announced slowly. "So. What brings you here?"

"We're trying to find a connection between the three victims." Dean decided to get this over and done with. He was tired and he just wanted to get back to Chloe and Sam. "By the way, did you talk to your mom about what Todd said about not being a racist?"

"I did." Cassie nodded. "She didn't want to talk about it."

"Right." Dean looked around the room once more before snorting. "So just then, why did you ask where Sam and Chloe were?"

"Nothing. Not important."

"Could it be that without them here it's just you and me?" Dean asked, finally returning his hazel gaze on her. "Or was it something else? Were you trying to get information about something else in a roundabout way?" There was a moment's silence. "You know what? Forget about it."

Cassie opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again before snorting. "I'd forgotten you do that."

"Do what?" Dean asked.

She glared at him. "Whenever you get close to a moment of truth, to being _close_ to vulnerable, you back off. Or make _some_ joke or make _any way_ to shut the door on me."

Dean chuckled darkly. "Oh _that's_ hilarious. See I'm not the one who took that big final door and slammed it behind me."

"Wait a minute." Cassie raised a finger.

"And I'm not the one who took the _key_ and _buried_ it." Dean trudged right on.

"Are we done with this metaphor?" The dark beauty wanted to know.

"All I'm saying is that I was totally upfront with you back then and you _nailed_ me with it."

"The _guy_ I'm with, the guy I'm hoping _might_ be in my future, tells me he professional pops ghosts!"

"That's not the words I used." Dean interrupted eyes narrowing.

"And that he has to _leave_ to go work with his father-."

"I _did_!" Dean interrupted once more.

"All I could think about was if you want out _fine_, but don't tell me this _insane_ story!" Cassie exploded, anger, annoyance and hurt coloring her every word.

"It was the _truth_ Cassie!" Dean was getting annoyed with having to defend himself like this. "And I noticed that it didn't sound so _insane_ the minute you thought I could help you!"

Cassie paused for a second, flinching. "Back then I thought all you wanted to do was dump me."

"_Whoa_." Dean laughed darkly. "Let's not forget _who_ dumped _who_, okay?"

The young woman turned her back on him, folding her arms over her chest. "I thought it was what you wanted."

"Well it _wasn't_."

"I didn't mean to _hurt_ you." Cassie's voice wavered strongly, as if she was fighting back tears.

"Well you _did_." Dean's voice had gone emotionless.

"I'm _sorry_!" She twirled around, curls flying, facing him, eyes wide and sad.

"Yeah, me too." Dean nodded, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his jeans jacket.

She looked at him, chocolate eyes dark, beautiful and hopeful as she took a hesitant step towards him. "Dean I-there's nothing I can say to make what I did any better, and if I could go back in time and change the way I reacted I _would_, but I can't."

"I know." Dean said softly, looking down at his feet.

"But I _can_ do something about the _now_." She placed her hands on her chest, looking up into his face. "I've missed you so _much_ Dean. And I—having lost my father made me think about what was important to me. Important to me like _you_." Her chocolate gaze zeroed in on his hazel and wouldn't let him look away. "I have _never_ loved anyone the way I loved you."

Dean was silent, looking down into the face of the first woman he'd ever considered settling down with. He would have left hunting for her. And now, now she was offering him everything he'd wanted to hear all those years ago.

Looking up into his eyes, Cassie closed hers and pressed her lips to his…

…And Dean felt _nothing_.

The young woman stilled, sighed, and pulled away.

"That's not going to be enough, huh?" Cassie suddenly whispered as she looked away and took a step back, removing her hands from his chest. "Because the time—_our_ time—past us by—past _me_ by." She smiled wobbly. "I let you go, I closed that door, I 'buried the key', and you didn't bother looking for the key or at least kicking the door down."

Dean frowned slightly as he looked at her.

Cassie hugged herself, smiling so sadly it was heartbreaking. "Every girl wants the man they love to fight for them, but you didn't, Dean. I told you to leave and you did, without a backwards glance. You didn't try to convince me otherwise, you didn't stick around." She raised a finger and silenced him when he would have interrupted. "You loved me Dean, I realize that now, but admit that you didn't love me enough to put everything aside in your life and fight for me. Admit that _both_ of us have fault in the fact that we broke up and stayed that way."

Dean was silent as he thought that over. He looked at the woman he'd once loved and realized that she was right. He _could_ have fought for her but he hadn't. He'd taken her negative answer and gone with it, had left right away. "You're right."

"I didn't love you enough to believe you," Cassie whispered, tears in her eyes, voice whispery. "And you didn't love me enough to convince me."

God, when she put it that way Dean really wondered if they'd loved each other as much as they'd believed.

Silence fell upon them as they thought abut the truths that'd been spoken between them.

"I'm sorry that I didn't fight for you." Dean whispered, smiling sadly at her. "I'm just not that kinda guy." He ducked his gaze and cleared his throat in discomfort. "And anyway, this isn't just a job for me. Hunting is my life. And Cassie, do you really see yourself splitting your time with me while I go on hunts—or leaving everything behind and coming with me?"

"No, I don't." She shook her head. "I couldn't deal with that lifestyle."

"I don't blame you." The sandy-blonde announced truthfully, all anger and blame gone from the both of them. "Hunters live lonely lives, it's a given. Most women just don't get our lives, can't live with it, can't understand or accept our ways."

"Chloe does."

His gaze jerked up at that. "Chloe's special."

Cassie snorted slightly, but not with anger or hurt or even meanly. "I'm starting to see that." Her dark eyes roamed Dean's face. "Thank you for coming here to help me, all of you. I—it really means a lot for me."

He smiled at her, that heavy burden, that queasiness in his chest gone. "No problem." That hazel gaze went to the darkness beyond the window. "I should probably be getting back to the motel. Chloe and Sam are trying to check up some things and might need me to look things over."

"Okay." Cassie nodded as they walked to the door. "Dean?"

He looked up as he crossed over the threshold out of the house. "Yeah?"

She smiled slightly, leaning her head against the doorframe. "I'm glad we finally got some closure."

Dean nodded, smile genuine. "Me too."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe had been unable to find any dirt on Mayor Todd, on the contrary actually. He'd been a deputy and sheriff before running for office and his record showed that he'd been an honest, fair man. There was nothing in the newspaper articles that gave a hint as to what he'd mentioned to Cassie about his not being a racist, but Chloe was sure that he'd been telling the truth.

Despite that, Sam and her continued researching for a little before calling it a night. They ordered a pizza and relaxed on the bed, eating and watching a romantic comedy they _knew_ Dean would scoff at if only he were there.

Talking about Dean, Chloe sent the clock another look, telling herself she was _not_ seeing how long he'd been alone with his gorgeous ex, but how long he was out there alone with a crazed car on the loose.

She was _so_ not jealous.

Not at _all_.

"That would never happen in real life." Sam smirked, pointing his can of 7-up at the television screen. "There are few guys who'd actually swallow their pride enough to do that. Who wrote the book this was made from? A girl, right?"

Chloe turned to Sam and admired him. "You're saying that you wouldn't do something like that to win back the one woman you'd ever love?"

Sam thought it over, turning to look at her as well. "Depends on the woman, really."

"Men, _always_ evading the tough questions." The blonde teased as she slugged him.

The door flew open and Dean entered, smiling at them as he entered. "How are my two favorite people in all the world?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay?"

Chloe frowned as well. "Were you possessed by some freakishly happy demon or something?"

Dean snorted and then scowled at them. "That's what I get for being nice."

Sam and Chloe exchanged a smile, relaxing.

"So how did the talk go with Cassie?" The younger Winchester asked as Dean took off his jacket and threw it on the ground, climbing up onto the bed and grabbing a piece of pizza.

"Fine." Dean shrugged, turning in time to see the main male and female in the movie share a huge kiss while crying. He made a face of utter horror and disgust. "What kinda girlie crap are you two _watching_?"

"It's not _that_ bad." Sam defended, smirking at the look on his brother's face.

"What are you talking about?" Dean sneered in disgust at the loving, tender, romantic moment on screen. "That's _disgusting_."

Chloe laughed, rolling her eyes as Dean went to sit on her other side as the end credits began to appear on the screen. She realized that she was once again sandwiched in bed with Dean and Sam, and yet she wasn't uncomfortable this time. She actually _liked_ it.

"Cool, you guys ordered the little balls of chicken that I like." Dean grinned as he reached for the box of _Chicken Kickers_ and chowed down on them heartily. "What else is on?"

Sam and Chloe exchanged smile before changing the channel and finally leaving it on a psychological thriller filled with violence and mayhem-just Dean's kinda movie.

The three finished their pizza, the chicken kickers (which they had to wrestle from Dean's arms), and watched the movie and its sequel.

Sometime during the night Chloe woke up to darkness and the sound of the television. For a moment she was a little disoriented, but when Dean moaned in his sleep and pulled her closer to him as she slept leaning her head against his chest, Chloe grinned, remembering.

Sam's arm was around and over both her and Dean, his leg between hers, his breath in her ear.

Smiling despite the blush on her cheeks, Chloe buried her face in Dean's shirt and closed her eyes, breathing out a contented sigh.

As she fell asleep, she hoped that the next motel they had to use only had a one bed bedroom left as well.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Hey everyone! Review?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Sorry haven't updated! Life is HELL!_

Some Chlean, a little chlam.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

By the next day, Chloe was enjoying the novelty of waking up between the Winchesters. The fact that they were closet cuddlers just made it all the better, and the female in her rejoiced at the odd and uniquely sensual positions she awoke to with the brothers.

The horrible thing about this morning was that Chloe had been unable to enjoy it. Cassie'd called Dean, _again_, to let him know that there'd been another unexplained accident that very morning-but this accident broke the previous pattern. Mayor _Todd_ had been killed, and Mayor Todd was _white_. And he hadn't been killed on the road either.

So the three of them had gotten up, gotten dressed, and hurried out of the motel to the crime scene. Interestingly enough it was the old Dorian's place, the old owners of the newspaper. Apparently Mayor Todd had just bought their place and was in the process of tearing down the house so he could rebuild on the land.

After a little investigating, pretending to be the same agents as the day before, they discovered that Mayor Todd had died just as oddly as the others had. Every bone had been _crushed_, his internal organ turned to _pudding_. The cops had all been stomped because it'd been as if something had _run him over_ (something like a truck), but there were no tracks on the muddy ground around the crime scene.

With no other information to be gleaned, the trio returned to the motel and Sam went out to get everyone lunch from the diner a block away. Chloe kicked off her boots, sat down in bed, grabbed her computer and began searching all she could. There was a missing link between the victims that they were missing…she was _sure_ of it.

"What are you doing, Gorgeous?" Dean asked, taking off his shoes and sitting in bed next to her, looking at the screen of her laptop.

"Well, I'm on the Lothorio's Online site, trying to find some connection or similarities with these killings and the ones that happened all those years ago." Chloe announced, eyes on the screen as she continued to type and search the town's newspaper. "But the newspaper doesn't say much about it."

"Not surprising if you really think about it—there was probably minimal police work too." Dean leaned closer towards her to get a better view of the screen to read the article she'd pulled up. "From what I got from interviewing Jimmy's friend, 'equal justice under the law' wasn't exactly too literal around here. People were still extremely prejudiced against blacks."

"I never understood racism. It's only the way of one race trying to feel more powerful over another." Chloe shook her head with a sneer before suddenly pausing. "Wait a minute."

"What?" Dean tore his gaze from the screen to look at her in interest. "What is it?"

"Powerful." Her eyes widened. "I think I may have found the missing link."

"Which, for our televised audience, would be?" Dean smartmouthed.

"What do these people all having in common, at least the three most recent ones?"

"Male parts?"

She mock-glared at him before shaking her head. "No, they all had something to do with the _Dorians_."

"The who?" Dean asked, a little lost.

Chloe sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "You should know this, you lived here before. The Dorians were the most powerful family here back in those days. They owned the newspaper that Jimmy worked at, and there would be a tie to Cassie's dad through Cassie. And then there's Mayor Todd, who was in the middle of _tearing down the Dorian's house_."

Dean sat up straighter, thoughts a mile per minute as Chloe typed.

A window appeared with the picture of a young white man, the words on the picture read _Cyrus Dorian Still Missing_. "Bingo." The blonde grinned brightly. "He vanished in 63. The case was investigated but never solved."

"That coincides with the string of murders that went on back then." Dean announced, catching on. "And Cassie said that they were extremely racist, the whole Dorian family."

"According to these files the house isn't the only thing the Mayor's been bulldozing. Apparently there were barns and other such things on the property that he got rid of. It made front page because the Dorian place was considered a Landmark."

"Wait, when did he start with the bulldozing?" Dean asked.

Fingers flying over the keyboard, Chloe read the answer. "The third of last month."

"And when did the first killing happen?"

Typing rapidly, Chloe waited for the window to pop up and then shook her head with a scoff. "The very next day."

"We got our link again!" Dean grinned as he turned to Chloe. "You're amazing, you know that?" And out of what seemed like pure instinct he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her.

Chloe froze in shock as she felt his lips touch hers so suddenly and unexpectedly. Her eyes were wide and on Dean, unable to believe that they were in this situation, waiting for him to realize what he was doing and pull away with some wisecrack comment.

And yet Dean wasn't moving away. He was just as still as she was, eyes wide and on her face as well, hands warm and remaining cupping her face. He seemed shocked and tentative, both expressions she'd never would have thought she'd ever see on his face, and then his lips were moving over hers slowly, his eyes closing shut.

Chloe whimpered in surprise as she felt those lips shift, felt him leaning towards her, felt the heat curling between them and leaving her breathless as Dean kissed her. And while the situation in itself was shocking, the kiss was the most shocking of them all. It wasn't hungry and desperate, it was slow, passionate, like teasing foreplay designed to make a woman wither in agony and bliss.

The blonde might had pulled away and slapped Dean over the head, accusing him of planned seduction or of trying to take advantage of her, if it wasn't for the fact that he was trembling. It shocked and humbled her that such a ladies man, such a _man_, would tremble as he kissed lil' old Chloe Sullivan.

Slowly, surely, Chloe found herself reciprocating the kiss, opening her mouth to him, to his tongue, sucking on his bottom lip and pulling him closer, moaning Dean's name as his hands left her face to embrace her and pull her flush against him on the bed-the laptop falling off of her lap and onto the sheets unnoticed.

Dean's cellular began ringing desperately.

_Ignore it_, Chloe pleaded silently as she kissed him hungrier, whimpering in pleasure as he dug his hands into the skin of her back as if claiming her, _marking_ her as his.

For a moment Dean seemed about to ignore the call, until he pulled away with a groan and reached for the phone, frowning when he saw the caller I.D. "It's Cassie."

Chloe sat silent, face flush and lips sore, wondering what he would choose. Would he throw the phone over his shoulder and kiss her some more or would he prefer to talk to his gorgeous ex?

Sighing, Dean got up from the bed and flipped his cellular open, bringing it to his ear. "Hey Cassie, this isn't-." He stopped, face going serious. "Cassie? What's wrong? What is it?" He looked panicked. "Hang on, I'll be there in a second." Flipping the cellular closed, Dean quickly picked up his shoes and put them on, heading towards the door. "When Sam gets here you two get to Cassie's house immediately!"

Long after he'd banged the door shut behind him Chloe sat still on the bed, watching the door, heart hurting.

_That's what I get for think-if only for __**one second**__-that I could mean 'something else' for a guy._

Closing her eyes, she bit back the sobs rising in her throat.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Sam was distracted.

On one hand he was very concerned for Cassie and her mother as he, Dean and Chloe sat with them in their living room. Both Robinson women were pretty shook up and rightfully so. The truck had appeared outside of the house not even half an hour ago and had terrified the women inside by pretending to want to crash into the house after them several times before finally leaving.

And on the other hand he was concerned about Chloe. By the time he'd gotten to the motel Dean had already been gone for a while, and Chloe looked a mess. It was obvious that she'd been crying, and although she wouldn't talk to him about it Sam just wanted to push her up against a wall and force it out of her.

Something had hurt her badly, and every instinct in his body wanted to _destroy_ whatever it was.

"So you didn't see who was driving the truck?" Dean asked from where he sat on the loveseat next to Cassie, looking worried as could be as she drank a cup of tea, hands shaking visibly from nerves.

"It seemed to be _no one_." Cassie whispered, eyes haunted. "Everything was moving _so fast_. And then, and then it was just _gone_." She turned to Dean. "Why didn't it kill us?"

"Whoever's controlling the truck wants to scare you first." Dean answered pointblank, not beating around the bushes or sugarcoating it for his terrified ex.

Sam, who sat on the couch next to Chloe, wondered about her unusual silence before turning to Cassie's mom. "Mrs. Robinson? Cassie said that your husband saw the truck before he died." Suddenly all eyes were on the elderly woman.

"Mom?" Cassie asked, seeing the terrified look in the redhead's eyes.

"Martin was u-under a lot of stress." Mrs. Robinson stuttered, looking down at the cup of tea in her hands. "We can't be sure of what he was seeing."

"Well, after tonight I'm sure we can be reasonably sure that he was seeing a _truck_." Dean announced, once more quite bluntly. "What happened tonight? You and Cassie are _marked_, okay? Your daughter could _die_, so if you know something this would be a helluva good time to tell us about it."

Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother. Dean was being a little more forceful than he usually was in these sorts of situations.

"Dean-." Cassie glared at him for talking to her mother that way.

"Yes." Mrs. Robinson hurriedly spoke, causing everyone to look at her once more. "He said he saw a truck."

Sam frowned. "Did he know who it belonged to?"

"He thought he did." Mrs. Robinson whispered.

"Who was that?" Dean asked.

"Cyrus Dorian." Chloe whispered, looking down at her shoes and ignoring the heads that turned to her in surprise.

"How-." Mrs. Robinson's eyes widened, filling with tears. "How did you know?"

"_Mom_?" Cassie squeaked, sounding so confused, so lost.

"After Dean came over here I, I got a hunch and did some research." Chloe answered the older woman's question, still looking at her shoes. "It took me a while of digging, but I figured it out."

"Figured _what_ out?" Cassie now sounded annoyed and snappish. "What is going on?"

Chloe turned and looked at the redhead. "You should tell her."

Closing her eyes tightly, Mrs. Robinson trembled slightly, a stray tear running down her pasty cheek before she took in a deep breath and nodded, finally speaking, her voice whispery. "Cyrus Dorian died more than 40 years ago."

Dean froze, face going harder. "How do you know he _died_? The paper said that he went missing." When all he got was silence, Dean leaned forwards. "_How do you know he __**died**__?"_

Mrs. Robinson closed her eyes tighter. "We were all very young…I-I dated Cyrus a while but I was also seeing Martin in secret because interracial couples didn't go over too well then." She finally opened her eyes, and they were so pained it hurt Sam to look at them. "When I broke it off with Cyrus, and when he found out about Martin, I don't know…he changed. His hatred—his hatred was _frightening_."

"The string of murders." Sam spoke as suddenly everything began to fall into place.

"There were rumors," Mrs. Robinson whispered. "People of color disappearing into some kind of a truck." Pain was her every feature. "Nothing was ever _done_." Tears began to fall as she took in a deep, calming breath. "Martin and I–we were gonna be married in that little church near here, but, uh, last minute we decided to elope because we didn't want the attention."

"And Cyrus?" Dean asked, face and voice still hard.

A moment passed in silence before the elderly woman answered, voice trembling from suppressed sobs. "The day we set for the wedding was the day someone set fire to the church."

Cassie gasped, face filled with pain as she listened to her mother's story.

"There was a children's choir practicing in there." Mrs. Robinson cried. "They all died!"

Sam hated having to push her for more information, but they needed it. "Did the attacks stop after that?"

"_No_!" The redhead shook her head. "There was _one_ more." She closed her eyes again, openly sobbing. "One night that truck came for _Martin_. Cyrus beat him something _terrible_! But Martin got loose and he started hitting Cyrus, and he just kept hitting and _hitting _and…"

Nothing else had to be said, the pain and anguish on the older woman's face was enough to finish the tale for her.

Dean's face softened with regret and sympathy. "Why didn't you call the cops?"

"This was 40 years ago." Mrs. Robinson shook her head at Dean for even _asking_. "Martin called on his friends, Jerome and Jimmy, and they put Cyrus' body into the truck and they rolled it into the swamp at the edge of his land. The three of them kept that secret all these years."

"And now all three are gone." Sam declared.

"And so is Mayor Todd." Dean spoke. "Now he said that you of all people would know that he was not a racist. Why would he say that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Chloe asked, once more drawing the attention to herself as she finally looked up from her shoes. "He _knew_."

Cassie's eyes went open. "Is that true, mother?"

Mrs. Robinson nodded. "He was a good man. He was a young deputy back then investigating Cyrus' disappearance. Once he figured out what Martin and the others had done he," she sighed. "He did nothing, because he also knew what Cyrus had done."

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?" Cassie sobbed, looking betrayed.

"I thought I was protecting him." Her mother responded softly. "And now there is no one left to protect."

"Yes, there is." Dean spoke, voice serious once more, looking at Cassie significantly.

Sudden realization hit Mrs. Robinson and she started to cry.

Sam looked away from the scene and turned towards Chloe, surprised to see her face emotionless, green orbs focused on her shoes again.

The brunet sighed.

As soon as they got rid of this ghost he was going to get her to talk.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

It'd been a grueling, long, and surprising turnabout which had almost ended up deadly. They'd found where the truck had been dumped and pulled out of the swamp for what they'd thought would be a routine salt and burning. Since the corpse had been still inside of the truck, they hadn't thought anything would go out of the ordinary about this ghosting.

They'd pulled Cyrus' body out of the truck, covered it with gasoline and salt, stepped back and watched it as it burned when suddenly the truck had appeared out of nowhere, flashing its lights at them. Apparently Cyrus' soul wasn't exactly attached to his body anymore, but had fused with the truck-and burning his body had only managed to piss the spirit off even more.

Dean had jumped into the Impala and rushed away, drawing the spirit-truck after him and leaving Sam and Chloe to try and figure out how to burn the wet, rusting truck they still had on their hands. The two, terrified for Dean, knew it was impossible and quickly began to try and come up with any other sort of alternative to getting rid of the part of Cyrus' soul fused with the sprit truck.

They'd been desperate, trying to think of a way when suddenly it came to Chloe. With the help of the map Sam always had in his bag, a phone call to a worried Cassie, and some exact coordinates, the plan was hatched and put into motion-no time to second guess anything.

With Sam giving Dean directions via cellular they listened to Dean grunting as the truck continued to ram him from behind at maximum velocity, praying that this would work.

When Dean reached the destination they'd sent him to and applied the brakes, they listened as he spoke softly to himself, goading the truck towards him, and Chloe found herself slipping her hand into Sam's instinctively for comfort as they heard the sound of something zooming rapidly towards Dean.

Sam pulled Chloe towards him and they closed their eyes as the sound seemed right in front of Dean…and then there was a loud _swoosh_ and then _nothing_.

"Dean?" Sam spoke, cellular on speakerphone. "You still there? _Dean_?"

For a second there was silence and then… "Where'd it go?"

Sam and Chloe exchanged a look of pure relief before Sam spoke again. "Dean, you're where the church was."

"What church?" Dean asked.

"The place Cyrus burned down." Chloe reminded him, finally talking. "Where he murdered all those kids?"

"There's not a whole lot of it left." Dean announced, sounding as if he was looking around him.

"Doesn't matter if the building itself is there Dean, you should know that." Chloe snorted. "The church ground is hallowed ground whether the church is there or not. Sometimes when evil spirits cross over hallowed ground they're destroyed-it was the best idea I could come up with at such short notice."

Feeling herself being watched, Chloe looked up at Sam and blushed when she saw the pride in his face as he smiled down at her.

"_Sometimes_?" Dean's voice came from the cellular. "_SOMETIMES_? What if this hadn't been one of those _times_?"

Chloe grinned, and she knew she was getting a little _too_ much enjoyment out of the slight hysteria in his voice. "Just be glad that it _was_ one of _those_ times, Winchester. Now come pick us up, it's freezing out here and I'm tired."

"This woman will be the _death_ of me." Dean could be heard grumbling as he ended the phone call.

Laughing, Chloe didn't even know what she was doing until she was hugging Sam, burying her face in his jacket and smiling, relaxing. Life was way too short to kick oneself because of mistakes, and she wasn't about to let her hormones ruin the great relationship she had with these brothers.

"You okay, Chloe?" Sam asked, voice a little odd as his arms went around her. "You looked sad a little while ago and I was worried."

"I know, but I'm fine now." She burrowed closer to him, sighing happily. "You're nice and toasty, I'm not letting go."

He chuckled softly. "I'm not exactly complaining here."

"Good." And with that she closed her eyes and enjoyed his heat, listening to the crickets and waiting for Dean to return.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The next day Chloe, Sam and Dean left their motel and headed downstairs to leave, not very surprised to find Cassie leaning against the Impala, smiling at them.

"I thought you'd be leaving quickly." She smiled, pushing away. "And I wanted to come and say goodbye since I know Dean would probably just want to go without saying anything."

Chloe tensed for a second before she willed herself to calm down and smile at the dark beauty. She couldn't act like a jealous girlfriend with Dean. Sure, they'd shared a kiss, but it obviously hadn't meant anything to him, and she was doing her best to ignore it and forget it as well.

She could be an adult about this whole situation.

She _could_!

"How's your mom?" Sam asked, throwing their bags in the trunk.

"Fine," Cassie smiled brighter. "Now that this is all over its like a burden is gone for her shoulders-she asked me to thank you guys so much for her."

"It was nothing." Dean announced firmly. "You're a friend and we help our friends."

Cassie's smile dimmed slightly but she nodded. "Bye Dean, Sam, Chloe, and thanks again."

Chloe nodded and turned with Sam to get into the backseat.

"Chloe?" Cassie called, surprising the blonde. "Can I—can I talk to you for a second?"

Turning around, blinking, Chloe nodded, following the other woman a little distance from the Impala, feeling the boys' curious stares on her back. "Um, yeah?"

Cassie shoved her hands into her pockets and took in a deep breath before looking at Chloe's face. "Take care of him for me. _Please_."

The blonde was so surprised she only managed to nod.

"He-Dean doesn't let hardly _anyone_ close to him, he—he has this barrier." Cassie announced, motioning to her heart. "He thinks it makes him stronger, but it doesn't."

Chloe frowned, wondering where the other woman was going with this.

"But he's let you in, Chloe. I don't know much about you, but that says _a lot_." Cassie's expression was sad, was forced. "Don't hurt him."

"Huh?" Chloe asked, confused with the sharp sound in the beautiful dark woman's voice. "Why would I hurt Dean? You're not making any sense." She frowned darker, green eyes meeting dark ones. "I would _never_ hurt Dean, I love him and Sam more than I have ever loved anyone, and I would _kill_ for them, for their happiness. I know that you're only telling me these things because you love Dean and probably always will, but I don't appreciate your verbal attacks or insinuations because they are all misguided."

Cassie paused and looked at her. "Sorry."

And once again Chloe was shocked silent.

Cassie bowed her head and took in a deep breath. "I—this is a real emotional time for me and I think I'm saying everything wrong and coming off as a mean bitch." Taking in another breath she raised her gaze and looked at Chloe again. "I _know_ you'll take good care of Dean—and even Sam—and I want to thank you even though I'm jealous and a little resentful that it isn't going to be _me_." She smiled, even though it looked pained. "So believe me when I tell you _thank you_."

"Uh, you're, uh, welcome." Chloe scratched the back of her head. This was all too confusing. "We—we should go now."

"Yes," Cassie nodded. "Go."

Giving the dark beauty one last confused look, Chloe shook her head and returned to the Impala, where Sam and Dean were waiting for her, looking concerned.

"What was that all about?" Dean wanted to know as she slid into the car and they drove away.

"I have _no_ idea." Chloe admitted, shaking her head.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"So let me get this straight," Lois Lane shook her head and flopped down on the bed with a shocked expression on her face. "You three shared a _bed…TWICE_?"

There was a snort on the other end of the phone-line from her spunky, blonde cousin. "Out of this whole complicated story about our adventures in Cape Girardeau, Missouri…the only thing that stuck with you was the fact that we shared a _bed_?"

"Can you _blame_ me?" The brunette snorted, picking up a nacho from the bag on the bed and taking a bite out of it. She was still in Smallville, trying to_ not_ die of boredom with the hillbillies by doing her best to convince her uncle that this 'Clark Kent' was a jealous nobody and that Sam and Dean weren't only hot as she didn't know what, but that they cared for Chloe and would keep her safe.

She didn't know if she was making progress on that front or if she was only making things worse.

"So I tell you the sordid history of the one woman Dean has ever thought of settling down with and a haunted monster truck and you…"

"Still think the sleeping arrangements is the climax of the whole story?" Lois grinned at her naughty choice of words. "_Abso-fricken-lutely_."

Chloe could be heard sighing. "You're unbelievable."

"Don't get me wrong, Cuz, I'm envious, and not only about the whole ménage a trois thing." The fact that Chloe didn't try to correct her _again_ only proved how annoyed and tired she really was. "The whole story sounds unbelievable. It's-it's _awe-inspiring_."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you sound _genuinely_ envious."

"I _am_." Lois admitted, feeling a little sheepish. "What you guys do, it's-it's amazing. It's _heroic_, and you get a helluva rush when the badguy's dead."

"Oh, _now_ I get it. You're a rush-junkie."

Lois laughed at the taunting sound in her cousin's voice. "Ya right. You know what I'm saying."

"Changing the subject completely." Chloe announced. "How's dad?"

"He's fine, complaining a little about why you didn't stay and why you are with the guys, but I've been working on him." She rolled her eyes and grabbed another chip. "I met this 'Clark' by the way, the one who filled his head with all of this nonsense in the first place. The guy's good-looking, yeah, but not got much more going for him."

Chloe giggled. "You sure you didn't _like_ him?"

Lois made a face. "Nope. Not at all." And that was the truth. Maybe Clark Kent was gorgeous in that 'yes ma'am, I'm a big heap of farm-boy innocence and charm', but he wasn't the kind of guy she went for or liked. Honestly, Lois had dated more kinds of men than she wished to admit, but after all that had happened she'd decided to abstain from relationships for now until she found her own Sam or Dean Winchester.

"Too bad, Clark's a great guy." Chloe sounded like she was really going for this. "I mean he's tall, handsome, got those rippling muscles, gorgeous—touchable hair and blue eyes that just beg you to-_Dean_!"

Lois raised an eyebrow as she heard odd sounds coming from the other line of the phone. There seemed to be something of a struggle, with Chloe and Sam telling Dean to give her back her phone and Dean saying that Lois was obviously not being a good example for her.

"Damn straight I'm not." The brunette grinned, not at all insulted since she _knew_ she wasn't a good example to her cousin and she prided herself on it.

Finally, Chloe somehow got the phone back and sounded a little out of breath as she spoke. "Sorry about that, Dean was being a _jerk_." The last word seemed to have been thrown at the older Winchester brother.

"Don't worry, I think the jealous insecurity is super sexy." Lois looked up at the ceiling. "So what are you guys doing now? Where are you?"

"Saginaw, Michigan." Chloe sighed.

A frown touched the brunette's face at the sound in her cousin's voice. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's just." There was the sound of shuffling and a door closing, also the slight sound of echoing betrayed the fact that Chloe had moved to the bathroom and shut herself in. "Sam had a vision the night we left Cape Girardeau."

"A…_vision_?" Lois's eyes widened, her voice lowering in awe. "He gets those?"

"Only like two times before." Chloe admitted. "The first was the death of his girlfriend, and the second was what was going to happen to me in Pete's place if they hadn't arrived."

"Wow. What was the vision about?"

"Well…" Chloe sounded a little hesitant. "The Reader's Digest version is that Sam saw a man pull up into his garage with the garage's door closing behind him by itself and the car doors all locking him in. The car starts pumping out exhaust fumes and the man can't turn it off. He dies of monoxide poisoning."

"He saw all that?" Lois whispered, hand to her mouth. "That's _gruesome_."

"I know." Chloe sounded a little odd. "Well, long story short, Sam wakes up and insists we head to Michigan. On our way there I did some hacking, and going from the license plate he saw in the dream I was able to determine that the guy Sam dreamt of is real. His name was Jim Miller, and I got his address."

"Was?"

"Huh?" Chloe asked.

"You, you said his name _was_ Jim Miller." Lois whispered.

"We got here too late. He's dead." Chloe sighed. "It looks like an apparent suicide, but Sam's convinced something like a spirit murdered Jim. We found out that the family's really Catholic so tomorrow Dean and Sam are going to go to their house undercover as young priests to see if they can get any information."

Naughty thoughts concerning the 'confessing of sins' and other such things crossed Lois' minds when she imagined the boys wearing priests clothes, but she tried valiantly to keep those thoughts in control. "So you guys sharing a bedroom again?"

There was an aggravated sigh and the phone-line suddenly went dead.

Lois grinned brightly as she dropped her cellular to the bed. "I'll take that as a 'yes'."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

** Review?**


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville or Supernatural.**

**_Important: You might want to read the oneshot "FATED ENCOUNTERS" which is a companion piece set around chapters 17/18 of this story featuring Lois Lane and John Winchester!_**

_So, this is the next update to Season One! Hope you like it-I know I wanted to write this because I love the little flashbacks that Chloe has managed to repress of the years her mother was possessed! I try, with every single one, to both annoy and confuse my readers more and more! And it's fun!_

_And, uh, the surprise!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

_Huddling in the corner of the room, six-year-old Chloe closed her eyes tightly, crying. Her hair was long, falling down her back and all around her like a golden shield as she hugged herself tighter, whimpering._

_"Darling? What is it? What's wrong?" Moira Sullivan's voice was soft and worried, and right in front of her daughter._

_Lifting her gaze, Chloe opened her teary eyes and looked at the kind face of her mother. "Where's daddy?"_

_For a moment Moira paused, before she sat down on the ground next to her daughter, raising her hand and tenderly brushing back her golden locks from her face. "He's busy working at the factory honey, you know that." She sighed, continuing to run her fingers through the young girl's silky locks. "What is it? Why are you here crying? What happened?"_

_"Nothing." Chloe whimpered, pulling away from her touch and plastering herself harder against the wall, closing her eyes tightly._

_"Baby?" Moira whispered, sounding concerned. "Tell mommy what's wrong. Don't be afraid, just tell me."_

_The little girl was shaking. "I—I saw you."_

_And the woman hesitated. "Saw what? What did you see, Chloe?"_

_Opening her eyes, Chloe slowly turned her head so that she was looking into her mother's blue eyes. "I saw you."_

_Silence reigned in the room as Moira just observed her daughter in silence. "Say it, Chloe. __**Say**__ it."_

_Lowering her gaze, Chloe wiped at the tears in her eyes and sniffled, confused. Why was her mother acting this way? Why would she do what she'd done? What was going on? Shouldn't her mother be acting differently? "I—I—I saw you h-hurt that man. Who was he? What was he doing here? He-blood." She closed her eyes again tighter and huddled against the wall._

_"Oh __**baby**__, you were never meant to see that." Moira sighed, pressing her back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. "I thought you were sleeping, I thought I'd have all the blood gone from before you woke up."_

_Chloe froze in horror, confused and terrified. Her mother-what was she saying? Had she done this before?_

_"Are you a big girl, Chloe? Or are you still a little girl?"_

_She was so confused and numb, not understand how she was supposed to act. "A—a big girl."_

_"Then wipe those childish tears from your eyes and look at me."_

_The sound of her mother's voice caused Chloe to do as ordered, and she looked into her mother's eyes._

_"I'm going to tell you something not even your daddy knows so listen to me." Moira announced, face serious, eyes slightly narrowed. "That man in our kitchen? The man you saw? He was a bad man, and he deserved everything I did to him. He hurt people, Chloe. He hurt little girls like you for fun, and I was making sure that you were safe, that he'd never be able to hurt you ever." A smile slipped onto her face as she reached forwards and tenderly placed a strand of Chloe's hair out of her face and behind her ear. "And I did it because I love you."_

_The young child looked up at her mother, desperately accepting those words. "The blood—he opened his mouth but no sound came out."_

_"Yes, that's true." Moira nodded, her eyes bleeding black. "You saw these too, didn't you, sweety? You saw mommy's eyes."_

_Nodding, Chloe remained silent as her mother's hand slid down her face to cup her jaw. "Why do your eyes look like that sometimes, mommy? Why do you talk to yourself sometimes?"_

_"So you've heard me too." And suddenly Moira was grinning. "You're a sneaky little demon, aren't you, baby?"_

_Chloe smiled slightly at the petname her mother had given her considering how mischievous she could be._

_"And you haven't told anyone?"_

_Chloe shook her head._

_"Good girl." Satisfaction and praise tinted that voice as Moira scooted closer. "You _are_ a big girl, Chloe. I'm going to tell you another secret, okay?"_

_The young girl nodded her head rapidly, already the horror she'd seen was beginning to slowly fade from her memories._

_"I'm __**special**__." Moira announced, putting her arm around her daughter and drawing her closer. "I'm a, uh, I'm a __**superhero**__, and I make sure bad men and women don't hurt anyone anymore. But normal people, they wouldn't understand what I do. They would make __**me**__ out to be the bad one. There are some that even hunt my kind."_

_"Was-was that man one of those bad men?" Chloe whispered, horrified._

_"No. He wasn't a Hunter." Moira shook her head, pulling Chloe onto her lap. "But he __**was**__ a bad man, and so I did to him what I do to all bad men."_

_Chloe stiffened, the images returning full-force. "You killed-."_

_"No. I, I __**saved**__ others." Moira's voice was insistent. "I need you to understand the difference because now you are the only one I trust, and now that you know I want to teach you."_

_Chloe froze. "Teach—?"_

_"Did you think I was the only special one?" Moira laughed softly. "Chloe. You're my daughter. One day __**you**__ will have to ki-__**keep**__ people safe. One day __**you**__ will be the, uhm, superhero."_

_The child closed her eyes as she remembered the terrified look on the man's face as he bled out on the kitchen floor, his heart still beating in her mother's hands. "No! I don't wanna do it! No!"_

_"You're not ready yet." Moira sighed with regret. "Oh well, you'll just have to forget about everything you know up till now until next time." She pressed her hand on the child's head. "They __**do**__ say third time's the charm." And with that power flowed from her hand into the child's head and Chloe collapsed in her mother's arms, asleep._

Gasping, Chloe shot up in bed, body drenched in sweat as she looked around the beat up motel room. She was alone, which meant that the boys had gone to investigate Jim Miller's family without waking her up—probably had thought they were doing her a favor by letting her catch a couple of Z's.

Ducking her head the blonde let out a deep breath. Green orbs closed as she tried to calm her beating heart, thankful that this nightmare, this, this _memory_ had happened while the boys were out otherwise she'd be unable to hide it from them.

_God_.

It wasn't that she was keeping secrets from them, no, it was just that Chloe didn't want to worry them. And if she were to be completely truthful, she didn't want to tell them about the few rare memories she was recuperating because she was confused enough with the information each gave her.

She'd confronted the demon in her mother's body _twice_ before the day John Winchester had arrived and saved her-and both times the demon hadn't attacked her but had been the same mother she'd always known and had let her know her desire to train her.

And that was what confused and frightened Chloe most of all.

What did a _demon_ have to train an innocent young girl…unless that young girl wasn't exactly innocent to begin with?

Growling, Chloe fisted her hands in her hair, feeling so frustrated and alone. She needed answers and she needed them _now_! But unless she found her mother-the demon inhabiting her mother-John Winchester-or the demon bastard who'd started all of this, she'd never know and she'd live her whole life with these nightmares, never knowing _why_.

"And now _that_ would be a bitch of an existence, wouldn't it?"

Crying out in surprise at the unfamiliar voice, Chloe jerked her head up and saw a man sitting on a chair, watching her. With a swift movement she reached under her pillow and pulled out the sawed off Dean insisted she keep with her at all times, training it on the intruder. "Who the hell are _you_?"

"Feisty little girl, aren'tcha?" The man grinned at her in what could seem like _pride_, not at all concerned that there was a gun aimed at him by a trigger-happy blonde. "It's been a while since I've seen you. You've grown up on me Chloe." His expression turned nostalgic. "And you look so much like your mother."

The hand she had holding the sawed off began to shake slightly. "You—you knew my mother?"

"Both of them." He nodded before looking around the motel room with a disapproving look in his blue eyes. "Not exactly the Ritz. With that credit card scam they've got going on you'd think they'd manage to get a place for you where you have at least the possibility of _not_ getting some heinous, life-threatening disease."

By now Chloe was frustrated and tired and confused…so she lowered the sawed off and shook her head. "Who _are_ you?"

"A concerned citizen." The man announced, returning his attention to her. "I like the hair by the way, frames the face."

Chloe didn't know how to react to this conversation. "_What_ are you?"

He tilted his head to the right. "The only link you have to the answers buried in your past. Yes, I _thought_ you're 'surprised face' would look like that. I know all there is to know about you. I know why the demon in your mother wanted to train you, I know what happened after she ran from your kitchen, and I know why John Winchester is hiding from you and his boys."

And while those were _very _enticing answers, there was only _one_ that she _truly_ wanted to know. "Do you know who's after me?"

"Yes." He nodded. "I do. And I know _why_."

"Why?" She asked, not caring who he was or how he knew this information. "What _am_ I?"

"If you tell anyone about this, about me, you will never know." He paused.

"But Sam, _Dean_-."

"Mustn't know of me for now." He announced. "Swear or I will go and you will never get this opportunity again."

"I—I." Chloe closed her eyes tightly. "I swear."

"Good." He smiled, and it was beautiful. "The first step we must take together is to break the seal she has on your mind. It will be a slow, hard process and it will hurt _very much_. You could _die_."

She snorted, shaking her head. "You don't sugarcoat things, do you?"

The man shook his head. "No. Not when it isn't needed." He paused. "Are you ready?"

Chloe nodded.

And then there was only pain.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The whole Justice League had been in a nervous, tense environment ever since giving Chloe the OK to tell those ruffians she was traveling with about their secret. If it'd been up to them they would have never trusted those trigger happy strangers, but they'd wanted to make life a little easier for their Watchtower, and now they were worried.

Chloe should have gotten back to them by now telling them how her companions had taken the news, and yet a couple of days had passed and _nothing_. At first they'd figured she might be in a hunt, and then-then they began to worry that something had happened.

This was why Oliver had traced Chloe down and with the help of Clark's super strength and speed (he carried Oliver and Victor), they, along with Bart, were standing in front of the motel room Chloe and the Winchesters had checked into the night before.

They'd been knocking for a while, knowing that Chloe was in the room alone, without any answer. At first they thought she might be sleeping with her earphones on and couldn't hear them (since Clark's x-ray vision proved Chloe was on the bed) but when suddenly they heard her screaming they broke down the door and hurried in, ready to annihilate _anything_ that thought it could hurt _their _Watchtower.

And that's when they found Chloe screaming and kicking in bed, an expression of pure agony on her face…and she was still asleep. They tried all they could to wake her up, and yet the young blonde only continued to scream and kick.

"Chloe, Chlo, wake _up_!" Oliver shook her as he sat by her side, face showing his terror. "Sidekick! Wake _up_!"

"I _knew_ those two couldn't be trusted to take care of her!" Clark growled in impotence, slamming his fist into a wall and leaving a huge hole. "I _told_ them not to leave her alone! Where _are_ they?"

"What's wrong with Chloelicious?" Bart asked in a soft voice, obviously terrified.

"We have to get Sully out of here." Victor announced, his face dark and serious, angry and worried. "I've done a quick scan on her and her brain waves are off the chart. We need to get her to the League's clinic and heavily sedate her—find _some_ way to stop whatever's happening to her, or otherwise she'll have an aneurism and she _will_ die."

"Clark." Oliver spoke, his voice dark.

"Already on it." Clark nodded, understanding his boss' wishes as he went to the bed, picked up his agonized best friend and vanished in a second.

"I'm going—going to help-any—any way I can." And with that Bart disappeared as well.

Less than a minute later Clark was back for Victor. "I left her with AC, but we need you to work the machines."

"Of course." Victor nodded.

"Boy Scout," Oliver spoke, stopping Clark from taking Victor and disappearing. "When you take Victor, come back. You and I are going to wait for these Winchesters until they get back."

Clark's face pinched with anger at the thought of the brothers, but he nodded and disappeared with Victor.

Oliver clenched his fists, trying to keep in all of his murderous anger. He'd said that he would try keep out of Chloe's business for her own safety, but these _Winchesters_ had managed to let his Watchtower get hurt, and he wasn't going to stand for it.

_I can take a lot of things sitting down, but I will NOT tolerate ANYONE letting Chloe get hurt!_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The first thing Sam did when they got into the Impala and drove away from the Miller residence was to check his phone to see if Chloe had called him while they were investigating. He smiled slightly to himself when he found no missed calls.

"That girl must still be sleeping."

Dean chanced a glance at the radio clock and raised an eyebrow. "It's after twelve. She can't be _that_ much of a sleepyhead."

"Well, we all deserve a day of just _sleeping_." Sam defended, playing with the neck of his priest's getup. "God, sometimes I just want to put this all on hold for a year and just _sleep_."

"Yeah, I feel like that sometimes myself." Dean sighed, turning the corner. "But getting back to the job-are you _sure_ something killed this guy?"

"_Dean_." Sam took in a deep breath. "I saw that man fighting for his life—and my visions are never wrong. _Something_ killed that guy. We have to find out who or what did this and stop it. Didn't you see how destroyed his wife, brother and son were?"

"Okay okay, don't get all bitchy on me, it's just a question." Dean announced, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "All I'm saying is that there was no EMF reading, no sulfur, nothing happened in that house…everything was _clean_. It _seems_ like an ordinary suicide."

"But it isn't." Sam looked out of the window and glared, feeling defensive. "Where are we going anyway? The motel's _that_ way."

"There's a fast food restaurant around the block," Dean answered. "Figured Chloe must be hungry."

"Good idea, I'll call her and see if she wants anything in particular." Sam dialed Chloe's number and pressed the phone to his ear, frowning slightly when it went straight to voicemail. "She must have it off."

Dean frowned and chanced a look in Sam's direction. "Chloe never turns her phone off. She knows we'll worry about her if we can't get into contact with her immediately."

"Her battery might've died while she was sleeping…" And yet not even Sam believed that for a minute. "Dean, maybe we should-."

"Already on it." Performing a sharp U-turn in the middle of the road, tires screeched as Dean pressed the pedal to the medal and sped back towards the motel.

Once parked the brothers hurried up the stairs towards their room, skidding to a stop when they found the front door kicked in. Immediately their faces went hard and their hands reached for their guns as they entered the room-only to find Clark Kent leaning against the wall and Oliver Queen sitting on the bed.

"What the _hell_ happened here?" Dean asked, pointing his gun at Oliver while Sam kept his trained on Clark. "Where's Chloe?"

"You have the _nerve_ to ask that question?" Clark Kent growled as he pushed away from the wall-which had a hole in it that hadn't been there when the boys had left that morning. "I _told_ you not to leave her alone! If she dies I will-!"

"_Die_?" Sam felt terror like nothing he'd ever felt fill his soul as his hands began to tremble. "What—what happened?"

"Where's _Chloe_?" Dean growled.

"We took her back." Oliver Queen finally spoke, raising his gaze, shocking the brothers with the immense _hatred_ there. "I don't _care_ if we don't have any experience dealing with the supernatural, we'll deal, because even if we don't we _still_ take better care of her than you do."

"Listen you sonofa-." Dean began.

"What _happened_?" Sam interrupted, looking from one cold face to the other. "Where's Chloe? What happened to her?"

Suddenly there was a rush of wind and a younger, shorter boy was suddenly standing in front of Oliver, shocking Sam and Dean silent with his appearance.

"Boss," the younger man announced. "Victor managed to stabilize Chloe but she's in it pretty deep. She won't wake up no matter what we do."

"Get back to Command Central and tell Victor to move Chloe's things to a more permanent room." Oliver ordered, voice cold-and suddenly the boy had disappeared again—gone.

"What the-." Dean stammered. "What the hell _are_ you people? And what did Speedy Gonzales _mean_ when he said Chloe wouldn't wake up? What the fuck _happened_?"

"If you'd been around, you would have known." Oliver responded before turning to Sam. "I told you once that I wouldn't kidnap her while you were gone-but I'm taking that back now. Chloe isn't safe with you anymore, this proves it. We have the ability and the resources to keep her safe and healthy, and we're going to do just that."

Sam opened his mouth to try and say anything, but he couldn't speak. There was slight hysteria building up inside of him as he realized that they were losing Chloe, that this morning, watching her as she slept might have been the last time he'd ever see her. "_No_."

"Take us to her." Dean ordered, his voice odd, deeper, thicker. "Dammit! You have to take us to where she is!"

"No." Clark shook his head. "You two have done enough, _we're_ taking over from hereon out. I didn't even want to stay here and let you know about the situation but Oliver said it was the right thing to do."

"Well let's all put our hands together for him and his good principals." Dean mocked, angry, his voice wobbling with a tint of the same desperation Sam felt. "Now take us to Chloe. If she's hurt we need to be there."

"The best way you can help Chloe now is by continuing with your hunts, finding the thing that's threatening her-and _killing_ it." Oliver spoke. "Don't waste time trying to find us, when we want to we can't be found."

"You have no _right-_!" Dean cocked the gun…and then Clark moved and he and Oliver were _gone_. "Who the _HELL_ was Chloe friends with?" Dean yelled, throwing his gun down in impotent anger before leaning against the wall and sliding to the ground. "What _happened_? Why wouldn't they at least tell us _what happened?_"

"We shouldn't have left her." Sam whispered, looking towards the bed, his chest hurting him so badly he _too_ slid down the wall and sat on the ground. "What are we gonna do, man?"

Dean took in a deep breath, running his hand over his head. "We're gonna finish this hunt." His hazel eyes turned to his brother. "And then we're gonna find those motherfuckers and _take Chloe back_."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The pain-the pain…it was _too much_! Chloe wanted it to end! She didn't care if she remembered anymore, she just wanted to forget the pain, to forget _anything_ to stop the pain. She would leave it forgotten, she would! Just—the _pain!_

_"Mommy's special…"_

_"Hi—my name is Clark Kent. The Principal asked me to show you around school."_

_"See that? On my family tree? I added your name, Lana. You're my sister now."_

_"Do Luthors even __**have**__ souls?"_

_"Mommy left us-it'll just be you and me from now own, kiddo."_

_"Pete! Stop being such a slowpoke!"_

_"Don't worry, Clark didn't tell me your secret. I discovered your green fetish all on my own."_

_"Sam, slap your brother up the back of his head for me, I'm way too tired to do it myself."_

_"I want to train you—to be like me. Wouldn't you like that?"_

_"Are you sure you didn't like Clark, Lois?"_

_"I know who is after you and why."_

_"We found you…you can never escape…Chloe…"_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"What's going on with her, Victor?" Oliver asked as they watched Chloe lying still on the bed, face a mask of agony. She'd stopped moving and had seemed to slip into a sort of catatonic state, and Oliver was getting more and more worried.

"I don't know what's happening, boss." Victor kept his eyes on their Watchtower. "But something is going on in her brain that's clearly affecting her greatly. Her brain is registering _amazing_ activity like nothing I've ever seen charted before. I didn't even _know_ that the brain could continue functioning with what hers is being put through."

"Have you been able to find any reason for this?" Clark asked from where he sat next to Chloe, running his fingers through her hair, trying to soothe her any way he could.

"I'm not a _doctor_, Clark!" Vic snapped before sighing. "Sorry, it's just that machines can only do so much."

"I understand." Clark nodded.

"I'm going to find the best in the neurological field and bring him in, see if he can figure out what's going on with Chloe. For appearance sake she'll be moved to my penthouse." Oliver announced. "That way we'll be protecting the league and she'll get the professional help she needs."

"Lets do it." Clark announced.

Victor nodded.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"Do you _know_ how much of our operation you have put at _risk_ with this _stupid_ stunt of yours?" She screamed at him, furious. "Her mind isn't ready for something like this! Her memories will fuse as one and then they'll break!"

"It needed to be done." He announced unrepentantly, looking out of the window. "I was the only one with the guts to do it."

"You better pray that she makes it out alive!" She hissed. "Or this will end badly for you." With that she stomped out of the room, leaving him alone in the darkness, looking out of the window.

And once he was sure he was alone, he smirked.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**so…how was this update? People! Review!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville or Supernatural.**

**IMPORTANT: There are some things that might not make sense in this chapter if you haven't read the short oneshot "FATED ENCOUNTER". **

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

The voices and images all collided in her brain like a train wreck, so loud and together, blending where they shouldn't blend, a person in the wrong memory-two memories combining, or a memory splitting into so many different parts and hiding from her that she couldn't piece it together again.

_"Clark Kent out of flannel? Did the world stop and no one tell me?"_

_"Daddy? Why are you crying?"_

_"Arrow, if you don't put me down I'll dye your suit pink!"_

_"We're moving to Smallville? Why? Sounds like a little hick town."_

_"His mouth opened and yet there was no sound."_

_"Lois, I'm telling you, this place is full of freaks! And I have a theory that the meteor rocks that fell are the reason."_

_"What? Pete's getting married?"_

_"Sam, please don't go."_

_"Mommy, why do your eyes __**do**__ that?"_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Lying down next to Chloe, Oliver Queen sighed as she looked at her agonized face. It'd been a couple of days since they'd found her and brought her back with them, and yet she was still like this. Sometimes the pain was so great that she'd cry out loud, pleading for it to stop, but most of the time she bore the pain silently, the agony on her face the only testament to what she was feeling.

"What happened to you, Watchtower?" He whispered, reaching out and tenderly pulling a strand of hair out of her face. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

"_Behind you! Look out_!" Chloe screamed, jerking, arching in the bed before going limp again, whimpering.

Oliver closed his eyes and looked away. God, he felt so _useless_! The top neurologist he'd gotten on this case had been completely _baffled_ as to what in the world could be happening with Chloe. According to the man Chloe shouldn't be alive with the amount of mental activity going on in that brain of hers.

"How's she doing?"

Looking towards the door, Oliver's gaze met Clark's. While the whole of the Justice League had been worried and hovering around Chloe's room in Clock Tower, Oliver and Clark had been constants, never leaving her side if the other wasn't there. "The same."

Sighing, Clark ducked his gaze before entering the room and going to sit on Chloe's other side, looking down onto her face. "C'mon Chlo. You're so strong. I might be the super-powered alien but you've always been the stronger one out of the both of us." His smile was painful, his eyes misty. "I need you to be strong again, Chlo, I need you to pull out of this."

"She's gonna." Oliver sat up, returning his gaze to the pale beauty. "You said it yourself, she's stronger than all of us. She'll make it through this-whatever _this_ is."

"They finished the hunt, and they're looking for us." Clark didn't look away from Chloe as he spoke. "Bart's been keeping us informed, and he says that they've been trying to locate her like crazy ever since Michigan."

"They're not going to find us." Of that Oliver was sure. They were in one of the safest and most hidden hideouts known to man.

A ringing tone echoed throughout the room. Clark stood and reached into his pocket, pulling out his cellular and frowning when he saw the caller I.D. "Hello?" His eyes widened. "Lois? How did you get this number?"

Oliver raised an eyebrow at the mention of Chloe's cousin's name. He'd never really met the girl though he _had_ seen her briefly that once in Metropolis when he'd gone to check up on Chloe—but Clark _had_ met her, and the farm boy had been complaining about her _forever_.

"I'm in Metropolis. Why?" He paused. "Wait? _What_?" Clark looked shocked and a little scared. "How-who told you that-? What? I-."

Oliver smirked. The alien was super-powered and yet he looked _terrified_ of a small, mortal woman.

And suddenly Clark's face darkened. "Well, they lied to you. I don't know where she is and I-." His eyes widened. "You're gonna do _what_? Look, Lois-." He paused. "Hello? Lois?"

Oliver waited in silence as Clark snapped his cellular shut.

"The Winchesters called her, I didn't even know that they knew each other." Clark announced, shaking his head as he put away his cell in frustration. "She wants to know _what_ I've done with her cousin and she says that if I don't 'play nice' she'll use all the contacts she has and she'll find out on her own and then it'll be 'my ass' for keeping her cousin from her."

"She sounds like a firecracker, just like her cousin." Oliver smiled sadly, eyes returning to Chloe. "Bring her in, but make her promise to not tell those guys."

"Are you sure about that, Oliver?" Clark asked, unsure. "I only met this girl once, and I don't know if we can trust-."

"She's Chloe's cousin." Oliver cut in. "_Chloe_ trusts her."

Chastened, Clark nodded his head and left the room.

Lying back down next to her, Oliver threaded his fingers through Chloe's and looked into her face. "Please, Watchtower, _please._ Come back to us."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

_"Are you going to finish that, baby?" Moira Sullivan asked her daughter, smiling at the child as they sat together at the table like a family for the first time in a long time. Usually Gabe was always at the factory, so it was great to finally have a time to just be the three of them like this._

_Shaking her head with a large smile, eight year old Chloe gobbled down the rest of the desert and thanked her mom when she took the dishes to the table._

_"That was delicious, honey." Gabe got up and hugged his wife from behind, pressing a kiss to her cheek._

_Moira blushed happily like she always did whenever her husband was affectionate. "Glad you liked it, darling. You're hardly ever home anymore-Chloe and I miss you."_

_"And I miss you guys too." Gabe continued to hug his wife and whisper in her ear, causing her to giggle._

_Chloe smiled at her parents before suddenly she felt a cold chill run down her spine. She pushed away from the table and went to the back door, hesitating and not knowing why as she turned the handle and opened it, looking out at the darkness outside._

_It was a moonless night, and shadows filled the yard, making everything dark and indistinguishable-and yet she felt that odd connection she'd felt every night for the last couple of months. Mostly it was when it was the darkest time of the night and mommy and daddy were asleep. She'd feel that connection, that pulsation-and then she wouldn't be able to remember anything else._

_But now it was here, and it was in the shadows, and it was watching her._

_Her feet, as if they had a mind of their own, took her a couple of steps outside of the house. She paused, tilting her head to the side as she heard the crunching of fallen leaves underfoot, and then she saw them…yellow eyes glistening in the black, watching her._

_"Chloe?" Her mother laughed, coming outside. "What are you-?" And suddenly she froze behind Chloe, face going pale as she looked at the pair of yellow eyes in the darkness. "__**You**__."_

_Laughter erupted from the darkness and suddenly those eyes were gone._

_"Mommy?" Chloe asked. "Who was that?"_

_Moira was shivering, eyes wide and on the darkness. "Chloe. Get in the house. __**NOW!**__"_

_Suddenly afraid, the young child hurried back inside but went to the window, looking outside, watching as her mother stepped into the darkness and was engulfed by it._

_"Hey buddy, what'ya looking at?" Gabe Sullivan announced as he returned from the bathroom and appeared by her side._

_"There was something out there." Chloe admitted. "Mommy went to check it out."_

_"I better go see." Gabe frowned as he walked outside as well._

_Chloe watched from the room, that connection she felt growing._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"Dammit!" Dean cursed as he punched his fist through the wall of their latest motel room. He was at his wit's end, and he knew that he brother wasn't that much better than him either. Things had piled up on this job, and everything was getting more and more complicated!

Things had gone from bad to worse since those freaks had taken Chloe. Sam had had _another_ vision, this time of Jim Miller's brother _Roger_ being killed, and they'd arrived there too late (AGAIN!)to save him from being decapitated by his apartment window. Once again the apartment had shown no signs of ghostly activity and they'd begun to suspect that the family itself had been placed under some sort of a curse.

They'd gone to visit Jim's son Max, the one who'd found the body in the first place, trying to see if they could get some more information out of the stoic young man but the only lead they got was the fact that the Miller family had recently moved from the house that Max had been born in and raised in.

Since it'd been the only lead they had to go on the brothers had gone to the old house, checked it out, and found no bad history about the place and no EMF readings. But they _had_ talked to the neighbor, and found out that both Jim Miller and his brother Roger would regularly beat the stuffing out of Max while his stepmother did nothing.

And then Sam had had another vision—this time of Max killing his stepmother for her never trying to defend him from his father and uncle. They'd barely made it in time, and yet it'd still be a close call—one with many surprises.

Like the fact that Max's true mother had died in a freak fire in his nursery when he was a baby (which was the reason his father would beat him so much-he blamed Max for his wife's death)-and that Max had psychic abilities like Sam, except his ability was telekinesis. That was how he'd killed his father and uncle.

And then in a struggle that'd ended up with Max's death, Sam had shocked Dean and himself by using _telekinesis_ to divert the bullet heading towards his brother towards Max.

"I don't even know where to begin looking for her." Sam looked like he wanted to throw his PC as far away from him as possible. "I've read up on this Oliver Queen and guess what? He's a _billionaire_. There are just too many places he could have stashed her."

"Who the _hell_ does he think he's fooling?" Dean wanted to know, sitting down on the bed. "Chloe's in more danger now than ever!"

Sam kept silent, but a muscle in his cheek jumped.

"We just found out that there are other kids out there like you, and that means that what happened to you wasn't an isolated mistake—it was _planned_." Dean spoke, voice hard. "That means the fucker behind this all is upping his ante, and dad's sure Chloe's a part of this plan somehow."

"So far every vision I've ever had is connected to this demon somehow." Sam spoke, looking blankly at his computer screen. "Jess, Chloe, _Max_…all of them have some tie to this demon."

"Mom said we had to take care of her." Dean shot back up from bed. "How can we do that if those _whatever they were_ are keeping her from us?" He ran his hand over his head. "What happened to her? Why did they say she might die? Where is she?"

"I don't know." Sam lowered his gaze, feeling sick to his gut. "God, I wish I knew. I wish we were there."

"They have no right!" Dean snarled. "When I get my hands on them I'll-."

His phone rang, and Dean was about to ignore it when he saw the caller I.D. "Lois, _tell_ me you have some news."

"_Winchester, I just got off the phone with Clark._" Lois Lane announced in a business tone. "_He denied everything, said you were lying. But guess what? I don't believe him. Anyway, I know from what Chloe's told me about this guy, he wouldn't leave her side during a time like this, and when I asked him where he was he said he was in Metropolis_."

"Metropolis?" Dean asked, snapping his fingers in Sam's directions. "You think that's where they're keeping Chloe?"

"_I'm almost certain_." Lois replied. "_That's all I have for you right now, but the moment I get something else I'll call you immediately and I expect you to do the same._"

"Yes, of course." Dean nodded even though he knew she couldn't see him. "And Lois? Thank you."

"_No problem, Winchester. Chloe's my cousin, and I know she's better off with you and Sam than anyone else right now. You're the only ones I trust to take care of her, that's why I'm gonna do my best to help you two get her back_." And with that she cut off the conversation.

Closing his cell shut, Dean turned to his brother. "What buildings does Oliver Queen own in Metropolis?"

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

_"Chloe, you really got to stop doing this." A younger Clark Kent frowned at her. "One day you're gonna get yourself killed and I'm not going to be there to save you."_

_"Stop worrying about me." Chloe whispered, hugging herself as she looked out of the window in the loft. "I always make it out okay."_

_"Chloe, look at me." Clark turned her around, blue eyes searching her face. "Today you didn't make it out 'okay'. Today you were really hurt."_

_"But I wasn't killed, Clark." Chloe leaned into his chest. "And it's not like I can get away from this weirdness, you know that. If I don't search for it, it finds me. It's like all things __**weird**__ are attracted to me."_

_"I know, Chloe, you're catnip for all things weird." Clark hugged her tighter. "But why do you have to run in head-first? Why can't you be more cautious?"_

_"I-I'm sorry Clark." Closing her eyes tightly, Chloe paused and pulled away from Clark, frowning when she saw Pete looking at himself in a mirror, wearing a tux. "What are you doing here? You're in the wrong memory."_

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Lois Lane was confused, and she didn't like it. All she knew was that she'd been in the middle of trying to investigate where Oliver Queen and Clark Kent had her cousin when all of a sudden the latter mentioned was standing in front of her. He hadn't answered any of her questions (like how the HELL he'd gotten into the house), but he'd told her that he did know where Chloe was, that she was in a coma-but that he would only take her to Chloe if she swore that she wouldn't tell the Winchester brothers what she knew.

She'd agreed immediately-and then in seconds she was gone from her uncle Gabe's home and was in a penthouse room. She was dizzy and confused but before she could start asking questions her hearts skipped a beat as her gaze fell upon the large bed and on the moaning blonde on it.

"_Chloe_?" Gasping the name, Lois hurried towards her cousin, horror in her every feature as she reached her side. "Chlo-Baby Cuz-." When Chloe didn't react, Lois turned to Clark, eyes narrowed. "What happened to her? What's wrong?"

"No one knows." Oliver Queen emerged from the shadows, and filled her in on what'd happened. "So we brought her here with us."

"Are you people _insane_?" Lois asked, shaking her head in disgust. "Do you even _realize_ how much at danger you've just put my cousin?"

Clark and Oliver exchanged a look.

"No, you guy don't. You've never had to deal with anything supernatural, have you?" She ran her fingers through her hair. "Listen, I realize with what just happened here with Smallville that you guys have some secrets of your own, but there's a _reason_ Chloe was with Dean and Sam and not you guys. _I_ have been through a supernatural attack, and believe me, you guys won't be able to protect her when that motherfucker that's after her realizes that she's not under the protection of the Winchesters."

"I understand your fear for your cousin, Miss Lane." Oliver Queen announced in a chivalrous tone. "But I assure you that your cousin has the best protection she could have here."

"Oh, really? Then what do you plan on doing in case this demon or any other attacks this place to try and get to her?" Lois wanted to know, folding her arms over her chest.

Clark stood forwards. "We have the best security here-."

"And it will do _nothing_ to a demon or a person whose demon possessed." Lois cut him off, not impressed. "What else do you plan on doing _when_ the demon gets passed 'the best security' you have installed?"

Oliver frowned. "Everyone here has a _specialty_-."

"Look, not to rain on your parade or anything," Lois interrupted, losing her tempter. "But unless that _specialty_ happens to be in Latin exorcism rites or something like that then all of your knowledge and abilities are _useless_." She stepped away from the bed and glared at the men. "I get it. You two love Chloe and you want to protect her, hell, you're probably a little jealous and resentful and _hurt_ that she chose the Winchesters as her guardians. But guess what? Your feelings _don't matter_."

Clark winced.

"What matters is my cousin's safety, and the fact that you two have just royally _fucked up!_" She threw her hands in the air.

"When we found her she was like _this_." Oliver was angry, pointing to Chloe as she moaned in pain in the bed. "How is _that_ proof that they are taking better care of her?"

"This isn't about who is taking better care of her, Mr. Queen! This is about the fact that a demon who can _eviscerate_ and set _people one fire_ with just its _thoughts_ is after my cousin and you've taken her away from the only two people who could protect her from it!"

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

She gasped as she jolted awake, the pain suddenly gone, leaving her in a blanket of warmth and comfort. The young woman looked around her, confused, frightened. She didn't recognize the room or the bed she was in.

Where was she?

There was movement next to her, a groan, and she gaped as she turned and saw a woman sleeping on the bed with her. She gulped, looking at the beautiful brunette, feeling instant love when she saw her.

_Okay, so apparently I'm lesbian_.

Taking in a deep breath, she reached forwards, hesitated for a minute, and then shook the sleeping woman. "Uhm, hello? Hi? Excuse me?"

The woman grumbled slightly before suddenly jolting up, her eyes turning to her and they grew large before the woman threw herself on her. "Chloe! Oh my god! You're awake!"

Chloe.

_Chloe_.

The name sounded familiar.

It must be her own.

"How are you?" The woman hugged her tighter before pulling away, looking in her face. "Do you need anything? _Say_ something!"

She…_Chloe_…tilted her head to the right and looked at the beautiful woman's face. "Please, don't feel hurt when I ask you this."

"Sure, sure." The brunette grabbed Chloe's hands and squeezed. "Anything. What is it?"

She blinked. "Who are you?"

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

"_Amnesia_?" John Winchester's voice was crackled but understandably surprised.

"Yes, she didn't even remember her own name." Lois closed the door behind her and leaned on it, closing her eyes and taking in a deep, calming breath. "Whatever happened to her, when her brainwaves scrambled like that it must have affected her memory. She can't remember anyone or anything."

"This isn't good."

"And I don't think it's a coincidence either." Lois uttered. "_Something_ did this to Chloe, something _wanted_ Chloe to forget. It must have thought that she'd be more vulnerable that way."

"She _would."_

"So you see why I need you to call Sam and Dean and let them know where we are and what's going on." Lois whispered. "I promised that _I_ wouldn't tell them, but I never said that I wouldn't call their father and tell _him_ so _he_ could tell them."

She could _hear_ his smirk.

"Look, I have to go. I told them I needed to use the bathroom, and since they don't trust me they'll be even more suspicious if I take time in here."

"I-I'll call Dean." John sighed. "And Lois? Take care of yourself, okay? I don't like the sound of those guys. They don't sound trustworthy."

She smiled slightly. "Are you worried for me, John Winchester?"

He hung up.

Lois smiled to her reflection, shaking her head.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Review?**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville or Supernatural.**

_Okay, I've finally decided what to do with Lois's love interest, and a couple of you won't like it, but it needs to be this way because I've been debating in what direction I want to take the story while making it still stay true to the series, and I've made up my mind._

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Sam and Dean had been already halfway to Metropolis by the time that they received their father's call. The brothers had been debating which of the many buildings Oliver Queen owned he could be hiding Chloe in, when Dean's ring tone sounded out loud and proud.

"Yeah?" He asked, flipping the lid and pressing it to his ear, gaze never leaving the road.

"_Chloe's being kept at the Clock Tower in Metropolis._" John Winchester's voice surprised the hell out of his son. "_The place is heavily guarded and supposedly has the 'best security known to man', so you're going to have some trouble getting in._"

"_Dad_?" Dean asked in surprise, slowing down. "How-?"

"They brought Lois, made her promise not to talk to you guys and tell you where Chloe is…so she called me instead and told me to tell you." John Winchester announced curtly, cutting into his son's question.

"How did Lois have your number?" Dean asked, sharing a curious glance with Sam.

The dial tone was his only answer.

"He hung up on me." Dean snorted, throwing his cellular in the backseat before turning to his brother. "Chloe's in the Metropolis Clock Tower and dad and Lois are somehow phone buddies. When did _that_ happen?"

Sam raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. "Let's get Chloe back and then we can ask Lois."

Dean nodded and pressed down on the pedal, speeding them up even more now that they had a destination in mind. Neither of them even _suspecting_ that their father had forgotten to clue them in on a very important piece of information.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe was a more than a little confused as she looked out of the large window in the Clock Tower. Since she'd awoken she'd seen many new faces who swore they were old friends, and while she appreciated their worry and desire to help her regain the memories that eluded her she was glad for this moment of silent respite.

Hugging herself, the blonde took in a deep breath, looking down at the hustle and bustle of the daily life in Metropolis. People were hurrying to and fro, ignoring each other on the streets as they tried to get back to work or wherever it was that they were going.

Something inside of Chloe felt nostalgic as she watched the going-ons below, and yet a greater part of her was decidedly focused on something else.

Yes, she knew she loved and was close to her cousin Lois, and her two friends Oliver and Clark, but it was as if Chloe's subconscious was nagging her that something was _missing_. She didn't _feel_ completely at ease, completely safe, completely _at home_. It was as if she was missing a key element in her life, and she couldn't help but wonder if it was something she just couldn't remember or if it was just that she always felt this cold and alone inside.

_Oh God, I hope not!_

Hearing the sounds from the next room grow louder, her curiosity got the best of her and she tiptoed to the next room, listening into the tense conversation.

"_We need to bring them here_." Lois argued. "_Chloe's been living with them for the last couple of months. Let's face it, they're closer to her than any of us are right now, and if there's anyone who can trigger her memory it'll be __**them**__."_

"_This is their fault in the first place_." Oliver sounded annoyed. "_If they'd taken better care of her none of this would have happened_."

"_We still don't KNOW what happened_!" Lois seemed about to explode. "_And you can't blame them, you know you can't. They couldn't be with Chloe every single moment of the day and you know it! Even if they wanted to she wouldn't have let them. Chloe's an independent, free-thinking woman and they respect that. It's time you and Smallville do as well_."

There was a sigh. "_I respect her, Lois. I-._

And Lois sighed as well. "_You're worried about her. You miss her and you know that she's not safe, not with what's after her. But Oliver, you haven't seen them together like I have. Chloe __**loves**__ Dean and Sam, and they love her so much I get __**sick**__ if I'm around them too long_."

_Sam?_ _Dean? _

Chloe paused, bringing her hand to her head, frowning at the pain as flashes of images raced before her eyes.

X-X-X

_"I'm Sam Winchester." The brunette quickly butted into whatever the sandy-blonde was about to say, taking a step towards her. "And this is my brother, Dean."_

_**Winchester**__**…**__ Chloe's heart skipped a beat._

_X-X-X_

_Chloe turned off the television and got more comfortable in the bed, pulling the sheets up better around Sam and herself, closing her eyes._

_**Good night Sam**__**.**_

_And with that she drifted off into sleep._

_X-X-X_

_"Wait a second. Why are all of your stuff in this one room? With only one bed?" Clark frowned, suddenly realizing this little point, eyes going wide open. "Are you three-?"_

_"__CLARK__!" Chloe blushed darkly._

_"And what if we __were__?" Dean wanted to know. "Chloe's a gorgeous woman, and I usually don't share my women but I definitely make an exception for my brother."_

_X-X-X_

_Chloe kept her gaze on Sam's, rubbing his cold arms, trying to be there for him. "That's it Sam, you can do it." She raised her hand and wiped away at the blood flowing from his nose._

_X-X-X_

_Chloe smiled, and when Dean had limped into arm's reach she surprised both of them by her pulling them into a threeway hug, which was more than a little awkward from the brothers but she didn't care._

_**My boys.**_

_X-X-X_

_"Sam?" Chloe whispered, hating the fact that her eyes were filling with unshed tears as she stood there, not knowing what she was asking him but asking him it all the same._

_Sam gave her a small smile. "I __have__ to go, Chloe. The most important thing for me right now is to find the demon that ruined my life and get revenge for Jess-for __mom__." His gaze shot to the Impala when the engine roared to life, before his gaze returned to Chloe. "I can't stay here. I __can't__."_

_"I know." The blonde whispered._

_She didn't remember moving but suddenly she was propelling forwards into his arms, burying her face in his shirt and crying as his arms went around her, his heat enveloping her body protectively as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head._

_"I'm going to be fine, Chlo." Sam whispered against her hair, hugging her tighter to him, his voice cracking suspiciously. "I'm going to find dad and help him kill that son of a bitch whether he wants me help or not. And then I'm going to come back, okay?"_

_She nodded against his shirt but didn't trust her voice enough to speak._

_X-X-X_

_"I'm not going anywhere."_

_Dean tensed in surprise before turning to look at her and blinking, clearing his throat and relaxing under her touch as he returned his attention to the road._

_Neither of them spoke much after that, nor did they comment when sometime during the long drive their fingers threaded together while Metallica serenaded them into the night._

_X-X-X_

_Dean smiled softly and turned to look at her. "Thanks Chloe." He paused. "For everything. For listening to me when I needed to talk, for being there for Sam when he was acting all Emo, for putting up with us bitching like old women, and for, well, for staying."_

_She squeezed his hand and reached forwards, pressing a kiss against his cheek. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere. You and Sam, you're closer than family for me right now, and I don't plan on leaving."_

_Dean cleared his throat and looked down at his muffin._

_X-X-X_

_"What are you-?" Dean asked and then stopped in mid-sentence._

_Chloe frowned and turned slightly to look at him, wondering why he'd stopped speaking. Her green eyes narrowed when she realized that he'd turned to look back at her and had realized that the position she was in while she tried to check the backseat gave him a great view of her jeans covered ass…_

_A view he was apparently enjoying if the expression on his face was anything to go by._

_"Dean Winchester, just __stop__ the car."_

_"Uh? Oh, yeah." He blinked, shaking his head as if trying to get out of a trance, and stopped the car on the side of the road._

_X-X-X_

_She'd slept curled in Dean's embrace, waking up with her head resting over his heart, her leg entwined with his, and his arm around her as he continued to sleep peacefully. Chloe smiled softly, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart before losing herself to thought._

_This __comfort__ she felt with Dean and Sam, this __thing__, it was the result of that __connection__ she'd let slip to the elder Winchester before. She felt safe, trusting, comforted and completely at ease with the boys-something that was hard for her. And the boys obviously felt the same way around her._

_And Sam and Dean weren't people to trust others easily either._

_And yet they seemed to fit perfectly in this little puzzle box, not one piece missing or extra._

_Just as it __should__ be._

_Dean murmured something in his sleep and pulled her closer, breathing a contented breath in his sleep._

_Chloe snuggled closer, closing her eyes._

_X-X-X_

_"But I realized something." Sam whispered, holding Chloe closer and smiling at his brother. "I realized that Jess and mom are gone. Dad's only God knows where. You and Chloe-you're all I have left." He cleared his throat. "So if we're going to do this, we're going to do it together."_

_"I like the sound of that." Chloe whispered before pulling away and smiling up into his face._

_Dean looked at his brother seriously before speaking. "Hug me, Sam." He said with fake tears in his eyes, voice hilariously 'choked'. "That was so __beautiful__."_

_Chloe laughed as Sam gave his brother a mock-glare._

_X-X-X_

_"I'm not leaving you alone with him." Sam said in determination._

_Chloe growled in frustration. "Oh for heaven's sake, __go__ already! It's not like Ollie's gonna kidnap me while you're gone!"_

_"I wouldn't make that promise if I were you." Oliver announced, not helping the situation any better as Sam tensed even more and his hand went subtly towards his gun once more._

_"If you __think __I'm gonna let some __stranger__ take Chloe away…" the brunette warned, his voice dark and savage, his eyes promising pain and torture._

_Chloe's eyes widened in surprise as she saw the usual lovable and smiling Sam turn into a feral animal right before her eyes, looking like a sleek cougar ready to defend its territory from an invading outsider._

_Oliver's arm around Chloe's shoulder tightened before he shook his head. "You willing to kill for her, Winchester?"_

_"And __die__ for her if it came to that."_

_X-X-X_

_Sam was lying on his back, pillow on the ground, and she was draped all over him. During the night she'd shifted so that she was resting with her arm across his chest, her cheek over his heartbeat and one of her legs loped over his._

_Dean had somehow shifted as well so that he was spooning her completely from behind, arm around her waist. His breath caressed the back of her neck and there was something hard pressing against her butt._

_Chloe smiled slightly and shifted softly as to not wake up the brothers, pressing herself more against Sammy, resting her cheek closer to the beating of his heart. A blush reddened her cheeks and she slowly reached for Dean's hand and slightly tugged him closer._

_The sandy-blonde grumbled in his sleep but moved so that he was pressed up against her once more, his hard-on resting against her ass as he tightened his grip around her waist and fell back into sleep._

_X-X-X_

_Sometime during the night Chloe woke up to darkness and the sound of the television. For a moment she was a little disoriented, but when Dean moaned in his sleep and pulled her closer to him as she slept leaning her head against his chest, Chloe grinned, remembering._

_Sam's arm was around and over both her and Dean, his leg between hers, his breath in her ear._

_Smiling despite the blush on her cheeks, Chloe buried her face in Dean's shirt and closed her eyes, breathing out a contented sigh._

_X-X-X_

_Chloe whimpered as she felt those lips shift, felt him leaning towards her, felt the heat curling between them and leaving her breathless as Dean kissed her. The kiss was slow, passionate, like teasing foreplay designed to make a woman wither in agony and bliss._

_Chloe reciprocated the kiss, opening her mouth to him, to his tongue, sucking on his bottom lip and pulling him closer, moaning Dean's name as his hands left her face to embrace her and pull her flush against him on the bed-the laptop falling off of her lap and onto the sheets unnoticed._

_X-X-X_

_"You okay, Chloe?" Sam asked, voice a little odd as his arms went around her. "You looked sad a little while ago and I was worried."_

_"I know, but I'm fine now." She burrowed closer to him, sighing happily. "You're nice and toasty, I'm not letting go."_

_He chuckled softly. "I'm not exactly complaining here."_

_"Good." And with that she closed her eyes and enjoyed his heat, listening to the crickets and waiting for Dean to return._

X-X-X

"Chloe?"

The blonde looked up through her headache, amazed and a little embarrassed by the images she'd seen. Apparently-apparently she'd been in an intimidate relationship with two brothers-at the same time.

"Where are they?" She asked, looking up at Lois and Oliver, who had finally noticed her in the doorway.

"Who?" Oliver asked.

"Sam and Dean." Chloe took in a deep breath. "I remember-I saw flashes about them. I'm beginning to remember them, I think. I—I want to see them-I _need_ to see them."

For some reason Oliver looked hurt.

"Listen to the woman, Queen." Lois announced in a soft voice. "She _needs_ them."

Oliver was silent for a moment, green gaze searching Chloe's face, before he sighed and lowered his gaze. "I'll have Clark find and escort them here immediately."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Sam Winchester knew that his father had told Dean that this place had the best security in the world, but he really hadn't thought that it would be _that_ easy to be caught. Dean and he had done enough breaking and entering in their lives for the brunette to sheepishly consider himself one of the masters, and yet there was Clark Kent glaring at them as they closed the lid of the Impala.

"_Dude_!" Dean announced, taking a couple of steps back in surprise, obviously not having heard Clark's arrival either.

Clark was silent, looking from one brother to the other before speaking. "I've been waiting on you two. I don't need to ask how you knew where Chloe was, I didn't trust her cousin not to tell you in the first place."

Sam frowned, feeling protective and defensive of Lois. Plus, this _was_ one of the men who'd taken Chloe away from him, so he really didn't need much of a push to have his negative feelings take over completely.

Training his pistol at the muscular, blue-eyed man, Sam narrowed his eyes. "Take us to Chloe."

Clark eyed the pistol with little interest before scoffing and shaking his head. "You guys just don't get it, do you?"

"Look, Kent," Dean announced, voice tense and strained. "Enough of the chitchat and take us to our girl."

"That's why I'm here." Kent spoke mostly to himself as he pushed himself off of the Impala and turned his back on them, motioning for them to follow him as he headed towards the Metropolis Clock Tower.

The brothers exchanged glances, wondering why Kent was giving in so easily, and hurried behind him, entering the Clock Tower and going passed the many security checks. Sam had to admit that on their own they probably wouldn't have been able to get into the Clock Tower, much less undetected.

It really made him wonder _why_ Chloe's friends had changed their attitude towards them, but Sam really didn't have time to ponder because they were suddenly in the elevator, and in what seemed like seconds the door had opened and they walked into the main room in the Clock Tower, and Chloe was standing there watching them.

"_Chloe_." Dean whispered in relief as he saw her, shoulders sagging in obvious relief. "_Thank God you're okay!_"

And while Sam was happy that Chloe was okay, he hesitated his greeting, just _looking_ at her. She was pale, and silent. Since when was Chloe so _silent_? And her eyes-her eyes spoke of confusion and a little fear.

He didn't like fear in those beautiful green eyes when they were trained on him. Not when they were Chloe's eyes. "Chlo?"

"Sam." And somehow it sounded like a question as she turned her gaze on Dean. "_Dean_."

And that was when Sam knew that his suspicions were right. Something had happened to Chloe…something was wrong…something was off.

But _what_?

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

Chloe took in a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves in her as she looked from Sam Winchester to Dean Winchester and then back again. One was tall with dark hair her fingers itched to run through, and the other was shorter with lips that seared her memory with heat.

That something missing within her began to disappear, and she tried smiling at the brothers, though she knew that it as wobbly at best. They were both so obviously worried about her-according to Lois they'd been searching for her desperately since Oliver and her other friends had taken her back thinking they were keeping her safe.

Those two handsome hunks had searched _desperately_ for _her_.

_Her_.

"Gorgeous?" The shorter one—_Dean?_—spoke, looking worried once again. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

Flashes of images raced across her eyes of Dean's lips on hers and of her body curled around Sam's, of Dean's hand on hers and of Sam's arms around her body as they slept in the dark of the night.

Taking in a _deeper_ breath of air, Chloe walked forwards towards Dean and looked up in his face before, face aflame, lifting up on her tiptoes and bringing her lips to his in an awkward movement. The memories fused with reality as she opened her mouth, running her tongue across his bottom lip, trying to encourage the suddenly stiff and frozen Dean Winchester.

And then he was responding, hand on the back of her head, keeping her in place as he slanted his mouth and took the kiss deeper.

He would have probably pulled her closer hadn't she pulled back, blushing darkly, shy smile curling her lips. Chloe looked up at the sandy-blonde and wondered at the look of shocked _awe_ on his face, before turning to Sam. She paused, surprised when she saw the hurt and conflicted emotions on his face as he looked studiously away from them, gaze downwards, muscle throbbing in his cheek.

Something inside of Chloe screamed for her to comfort him, to hold him, to touch him, and she did so. She left the stunned Dean and walked up to Sam. The blonde felt him stiffening as she came towards him, but he turned tenser when she raised her hand and cupped his throbbing jaw, turning his head so that he was looking at her in surprise.

"_Sam_." She whispered before closing her eyes and bringing his face to hers as she stood on her tip-toes once more, arching her back due to Sam's considerable height.

Lois made a choking sound in the back of her throat and there were two male gasps as Chloe pressed her lips to Sam's, rubbing her thumb soothingly against the silk of his skin, whimpering in pleasure as he seemed to react on impulse, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer.

Her back arched further as Sam plundered her lips and then he stopped, as if it were a hard thing for him to do, and let go, taking a few steps back. The brunet was red, and running his hands through his hair as he took in a deep breath.

"_Chloe_?" He squeaked. "W-why—_what_-?"

Dean was just looking at her as if in a confused trance.

"Why do I have a feeling John forgot to tell you guys about Chloe's condition?" Lois asked when she could finally speak again.

Chloe frowned, wondering why they looked so shocked at her kissing them when her memories clearly showed that the three of them had been lovers.

_Maybe we were keeping it a secret from the others?_

"What _condition_?" Dean frowned, turning to Lois.

"What happened to her?" Sam asked.

Lois scratched her ear, looking a little uncomfortable. "Um, she doesn't remember who you are. Who _any_ of us are." She took in a deep breath before finally saying it. "Chloe lost her memory."

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

**Hey everyone! Review?**


End file.
